How to gain experience?

[The Armchair General]

Is there any concrete rule to how and when units gain experience?

I use units over and over but they don't seem to gain exp

Also, does retraining lose experience?

[Five_of_Swords]

retraining does not make units lose experience. Units gain experience simply based on how many units they kill or take prisoner. I think the bonus is less with prisoners but im not sure...compared wiht the size of that unit. You can lose experience if a lot of your units die without killing anything. You want to fight armies with a lot of weaklings to get experience the quickest, and you dont want to be fighting elite units with your weaklings. merging units together is also often key, becuase lots of times yll get a unit with say only 7 guys but +2 chevrons and that can be retrained....
in a battle, if you want to build veteran units, try to make all yr less experienced units take all the losses.

[Silent Assassin]

The more they kill and fight the more experience they gain.

@ Five of Swords Are you sure about when you retrain your units I tought that as you retrain your units they will lose experience because when you retrain them you add new recruits with no experience, in that state of mind you should lose experience as you replace your experienced dead men for new fresh ones that didn't even killed yet

Rebel

[Five_of_Swords]

well im totally sure that in my version at least of mtw2, retraining units has no effect on experience. I use this tactic all the time in fact, get a small unit left after a big battle with lots of experience and retrain it, then i just often disband the full units left after merging that have no experience. It just can get annoying how much time is spent moving units around and retraining...works best if you use a lot of small but efficient armies and dont mind losing some battles for purely the sake of inflicting a bunch of casualties on the enemy (this is where heavy cavalry charges really shine)

[NobleNick]

...Are you sure about when you retrain your units I tought that as you retrain your units they will lose experience because when you retrain them you add new recruits with no experience, in that state of mind you should lose experience as you replace your experienced dead men for new fresh ones that didn't even killed yet...

It works as you suggest in RTW; but, in M2TW, I am told (haven't paid attention, myself) that retrained units keep same level of experience.

[Toorima]

A simple and safe way for the cavalry to gain experience is the hunt down of routing enemies, carried out carefully. Most of my heavy cav got its silver and gold chevrons from cutting down fleeing levies.

A powerful cavalry charge will also boost experience.

To make sure all the experience-gaining pays off, you should make sure your veteran troops receive a favored treatment. Use them in many battles, but always make sure that they'll fight in full numbers. In battle you should always have an eye on your elite. Otherwise the rest of a experienced unit may get smashed by bigger units and you won't even recognize their poor fate.

[HighLord z0b]

Yeah, retraining doesn't loose experience, which kind of defeats to purpose of merging units.

[Basil the Great]

Yeah, retraining doesn't loose experience, which kind of defeats to purpose of merging units.

Great I didn't knoew that Thanks guy's!!!

[The Armchair General]

Thanks for the help.

Kinda thought what Rebel thought but..... heck it works out better for me!

[Kratos]

Participate in crusades/jihads. Each unit get an exp-bonus, even if they joined on the last turn. I always let every family member join the crusade/jihad before I attack the target city, giving 100+ units an extra exp-point.

Autoresolve a lot. For some reason autoresolving seems to give more experience than when you manage the battle yourself.

[Toshi-sama]

Heres a tip you can use for your general. If you get in a big BIG battle like one stack vs your stack early on you can really upgrade your general.

Once I had a fight with longbowmen and spear militia and some mercenaries (all-together about 8 units) against a whole scottish stack and I plopped on a mountain and killed them off using my general as my main flanking force. He also chased down the routers. He lost most of his bodyguard but when he came out of the battle from 2 bronze chevrons to 3 gold chevrons.

Great way to level up a general's unit if you got the skills and the guts for it

[Five_of_Swords]

well lots of times, after a battle, if u merge units, u will end up with a small unit with more experience or even sometimes u can merge 2 units both not at full but not at half either, and get 2 units left that both have extra chevrons. i dont know the actual mechanics and sometimes i have to shuffle back and forth a bit to get it. When u get the extra chevrons u dont mess with any merging anymore, u save that unit and retrain. I never autoresovle, but with some practice u can manage to not only win battles, but give extra experience to whatever unit u wanna give extra experience to. Just have that unit be the hammer, say, rather than the anvil.

[Ambro]

well lots of times, after a battle, if u merge units, u will end up with a small unit with more experience or even sometimes u can merge 2 units both not at full but not at half either, and get 2 units left that both have extra chevrons. i dont know the actual mechanics and sometimes i have to shuffle back and forth a bit to get it. When u get the extra chevrons u dont mess with any merging anymore, u save that unit and retrain. I never autoresovle, but with some practice u can manage to not only win battles, but give extra experience to whatever unit u wanna give extra experience to. Just have that unit be the hammer, say, rather than the anvil.

That doesnt make much sense. I always thought that when retraining units the new recruits would come in with no experence. Do you think this might be a mistake they forgot about as it seems like an exploit.

[HighLord z0b]

That doesnt make much sense. I always thought that when retraining units the new recruits would come in with no experence. Do you think this might be a mistake they forgot about as it seems like an exploit.

Well they may have forgotten or maybe didn't have time to implement it. It's not necessarily an exploit, you could look at it as when retraining a unit the veterans pass on their experience to the green troops.

[Toorima]

Well they may have forgotten or maybe didn't have time to implement it. It's not necessarily an exploit, you could look at it as when retraining a unit the veterans pass on their experience to the green troops.

Experience wouldn't be worth a lot, if it got lost by retraining. A unit of 5 really experiences soldiers may be super-realistic but also super-worthless in an epic battle.

[Tantive]

it works marvelously, allot of my starting units in england are retrained in this manner just to withstand the eventual Scottish and Danish invasion :o
Coupled with some early blacksmith building, and you get tough, tough early units.

[Tantive]

especially if they were lost on the first charge :o

[Toorima]

Naw,you got still the option to hold back your 5 super soldiers until the enemy is engaged with the first line and then let the chosen few finish the work.

[Tantive]

No I mean if it was retrained, and the first super soldiers were in the first rank of the unit XD

[HighLord z0b]

In RTW there was no reason to retrain because you would always loose experience, it was much better to merge units to keep experience or train new troops.

It's not totally unrealistic either, modern armies pair veterans with new recruits so that the veterans pass on the benefit of their experience to the new troops. Experience isn't just about how many battles you've faced.