Your Most Decorated Unit?

[Henry707]

Gentlemen,

Following a fascinating post from the young Bluebonn, I put out a call to the whole forum to help us find the most decorated unit, the most battle honours etc..

I know many of you are now busy naming units - tell us the story of your most famous units, where has it served & why should it be nominated?

For my own, I offer my Punjabi Lancers which were raised in the early 1720's & have served me faithfully with other Sikh units into the 1800's. Where haven't they been, they fought in India, across Persia, over to the American Indian Wars in the 1760's, central American against the Spanish. They are currently being re-fitted ready for an offensive against France.

It was one of the first units I re-labelled & once you do that they really get a life of their own For the Punjabi Lancers, I'd be surprised if any of the new recruits to the regiment had ever seen the Punjab!

What do you think - anyone got any more worthy units?

[mikk]

I have in my united provinces campagin 4 regiments of grenadiers, who have taken part in four wars against france and now against the spanish. ( sorry no pics)

[Lord Leopold]

Gentlemen,

Following a fascinating post from the young Bluebonn, I put out a call to the whole forum to help us find the most decorated unit, the most battle honours etc..

I know many of you are now busy naming units - tell us the story of your most famous units, where has it served & why should it be nominated?

For my own, I offer my Punjabi Lancers which were raised in the early 1720's & have served me faithfully with other Sikh units into the 1800's. Where haven't they been, they fought in India, across Persia, over to the American Indian Wars in the 1760's, central American against the Spanish. They are currently being re-fitted ready for an offensive against France.

It was one of the first units I re-labelled & once you do that they really get a life of their own For the Punjabi Lancers, I'd be surprised if any of the new recruits to the regiment had ever seen the Punjab!

What do you think - anyone got any more worthy units?

I wish I was young again. Those ten men I had went from 1 chevron to many in one battle. Pretty damn good for Town malitia

[django333]

This is my most decorated unit. They have been with me since 1700. They have always fought in my main army. They have been a part of the downfall of many small nations including Wurttemberg, Westphalia, Hannover and Saxony. They were right there on the front lines fighting Prussia alongside my allies Austria. Now that Prussia is out of the way they have been redeployed to East Prussia to receive training before moving into Polish lands.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here is a pic of a less exeperienced unit so you can compare stats. Notice the above unit has almost double the accuracy of this one.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

These veterans of war usually rack up between 200-300 kills in every battle and sustain few casualties. It was so much fun watching them slowly gain experience. I don't rename my units. I like the numbers they are given as it lets me know roughly how long they have been in service. I believe this is the 3rd Regiment of Line. My newest Linemen are up around 50th or 60th Regiment.

[gary0044187]

I don't understand how your units have attained such high stats, I have had units that had been in over 2 dozen battles with maybe 2 chevrons.

[django333]

I don't understand how your units have attained such high stats, I have had units that had been in over 2 dozen battles with maybe 2 chevrons.

The trick is to always retrain instead of merging. The only time you should merge 2 units is if they have the same experience. If you merge let's say a 3 chevron unit with a 1 chevron unit the new unit will only have 1-2 chevrons. But when you retrain a unit the unit ALWAYS retains their experience. That is why it takes 2 turns to retrain a unit but only 1 turn to recruit a new unit. It take a little longer but it is well worth it. These guys rule the battle field.

[LittleCarp]

Interesting...I could have sworn I saw a unit of mine lose experience after retraining. Since then I haven't hardly retrained at all. instead, I've built up three units with good stats and when I sustain casualties, I supplement TWO of them with men from the third. To replenish the third I either pull from other units with decent stats or merge and take the statistical loss and then spend time building them up again. Once I get home I'll try to post a screenshot of those units. I vaguely remember two stars and three chevrons on one of them but can't recall.

I'll have to revisit retraining and pay more attention. That's how I took care of my units for the first two campaigns before I actually started caring about unit stats.

[mir24]

The trick is to always retrain instead of merging. The only time you should merge 2 units is if they have the same experience. If you merge let's say a 3 chevron unit with a 1 chevron unit the new unit will only have 1-2 chevrons. But when you retrain a unit the unit ALWAYS retains their experience. That is why it takes 2 turns to retrain a unit but only 1 turn to recruit a new unit. It take a little longer but it is well worth it. These guys rule the battle field.

Hi Django, great pics - it's always a pleasure to watch units go up in experience over the years. Sadly, because I'm upgrading all my Ottoman armies to Nizam-I, all my experienced Isarelys are being disbanded. I reckon it works out better though. An Isarely unit would need at least three chevrons to match a Nizam-I unit's abilities... I'm also numbering them starting from 1st Regiment again (instead of 20th or so).

I beg to differ, though - units DO lose chevrons regardless of merging or re-training. I know this because I had a Cemaat unit with FOUR chevrons that had lost a lot of men in battle. When I re-trained (half the unit was lost), the unit went down to TWO chevrons. The only exception is as you say - when we merge units of the same experience.

With my Ottoman Nizam-I Infantry, I've decided on a new policy now - I always merge units with the same experience or a single chevron lower. That way I always keep them at the experience that they are. In fact, thanks to your post, I just had the idea of including a "Training" regiment in each army. I'll use this regiment to replace the losses of other units...

[parts]

The trick is to always retrain instead of merging. The only time you should merge 2 units is if they have the same experience. If you merge let's say a 3 chevron unit with a 1 chevron unit the new unit will only have 1-2 chevrons. But when you retrain a unit the unit ALWAYS retains their experience. That is why it takes 2 turns to retrain a unit but only 1 turn to recruit a new unit. It take a little longer but it is well worth it. These guys rule the battle field.

Also, I'd say Darthmod, which I see is activated on your game, helped quite a bit? I saw somewhere that it took over 7000 unit kills in vanilla to get the max level of exp, which you have.

[gary0044187]

The trick is to always retrain instead of merging. The only time you should merge 2 units is if they have the same experience. If you merge let's say a 3 chevron unit with a 1 chevron unit the new unit will only have 1-2 chevrons. But when you retrain a unit the unit ALWAYS retains their experience. That is why it takes 2 turns to retrain a unit but only 1 turn to recruit a new unit. It take a little longer but it is well worth it. These guys rule the battle field.

I think I have identified part of my problem is the size of the armies. The units get relatively few kills because the whole army is sharing the kills with them. specifically the artillary, which destroys morale so fast that they don't even get great xp off of it. finally I split my 1st and 2nd foot from the main army to go after some short stacks that the enemy was harrassing my industry with. They killed them all and at the end of the 4th fight had finally earned their 3rd chevron, but when I loaded to the results screen the chevron was gone. I don't get it.

Does anyone know if their is some sort of inhibitor in the vanilla game?

[Lord Leopold]

I don't understand how your units have attained such high stats, I have had units that had been in over 2 dozen battles with maybe 2 chevrons.

Well my last ten fought more than two hundred so their Chevrons went through the roof. It can be done but I have to admit I have never seen them gain that much experience in one battle.

[Henry707]

This is my most decorated unit. They have been with me since 1700. They have always fought in my main army. They have been a part of the downfall of many small nations including Wurttemberg, Westphalia, Hannover and Saxony. They were right there on the front lines fighting Prussia alongside my allies Austria. Now that Prussia is out of the way they have been redeployed to East Prussia to receive training before moving into Polish lands.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here is a pic of a less exeperienced unit so you can compare stats. Notice the above unit has almost double the accuracy of this one.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

These veterans of war usually rack up between 200-300 kills in every battle and sustain few casualties. It was so much fun watching them slowly gain experience. I don't rename my units. I like the numbers they are given as it lets me know roughly how long they have been in service. I believe this is the 3rd Regiment of Line. My newest Linemen are up around 50th or 60th Regiment.

Hey Django,

That's a great example what I was thinking about so +REP from me for some great stats. Those guys must have seen some real action.

Have you named them in the game?

Henri

[django333]

Hi Django, great pics - it's always a pleasure to watch units go up in experience over the years. Sadly, because I'm upgrading all my Ottoman armies to Nizam-I, all my experienced Isarelys are being disbanded. I reckon it works out better though. An Isarely unit would need at least three chevrons to match a Nizam-I unit's abilities... I'm also numbering them starting from 1st Regiment again (instead of 20th or so).

I beg to differ, though - units DO lose chevrons regardless of merging or re-training. I know this because I had a Cemaat unit with FOUR chevrons that had lost a lot of men in battle. When I re-trained (half the unit was lost), the unit went down to TWO chevrons. The only exception is as you say - when we merge units of the same experience.

With my Ottoman Nizam-I Infantry, I've decided on a new policy now - I always merge units with the same experience or a single chevron lower. That way I always keep them at the experience that they are. In fact, thanks to your post, I just had the idea of including a "Training" regiment in each army. I'll use this regiment to replace the losses of other units...

I stand corrected. I thought retraining retained all experience because that unit never loses many men because of their expoerience so they never lose experience from retraining. So it seems it depends on how depleted the unit is. So in situations where the unit is near full strength retraining is better than merging them with a less experienced unit. The only time it would be better to merge is if the unit is let's say below 50% strength. And then only merge them with a similarly experienced unit. And of course there are different factors making this tactic flexible. Would you agree? I'm really liking the mechanics of this. It really forces you to put some thought into the training of your army. If you care a lot about the experience of your units it really adds a lot to the game.

Hey Django,

That's a great example what I was thinking about so +REP from me for some great stats. Those guys must have seen some real action.

Have you named them in the game?

Henri

I've never named units before but after reading some threads on the subject I think I'm going to start doing it with my new U.S. campaign. I'll post some pics once I really get going.

Also, I'd say Darthmod, which I see is activated on your game, helped quite a bit? I saw somewhere that it took over 7000 unit kills in vanilla to get the max level of exp, which you have

Yes darthmod slighlty increases the rate at which units gain experience. I'm not sure how much though. My unit isn't maxed out in experience however. Far from it. I bevlieve you can get up to 3 stars? Once you get that first star experience slows down a lot. That unit hasn't gained any chevrons in the last 3 battles they've fought which were all large battles where they killed at least 300 men and only suffered light casualties. If I had to guess I'd say that unit has 3k-4k kills.

[IGdood]

Retraining does kill experience when you suffer casualties a fourth of the total number of units.

[LittleCarp]

Alright, I didn't have to go home (gotta love remote access).

These guys were recruited right off the bat in Vienna, if I remember correctly. They first came to my attention while fighting against Poland where they got their first three chevrons. At that point in time it was only one unit. I named them the 1st Austrian Line. After my Ally Prussia and I destroyed Poland, they went to the south where they continued their campaign against Genoa. Another unit gained equal experience at that point and I made the decision to raise their experience in tandem. I made the 2nd Austrian Line and began working on a third unit to supplement them. They always move with my most prestigious general. After Genoa, they were instrumental in taking over Venice. Now they are engaged in my war with the Ottomans and just took Istanbul (which is about to rebel). The 3rd Austrian Line is still in Greece, where they were working on gaining more experience. The year is 1728.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Attachment 38848

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Attachment 38849

The grenediers I was talking about only had three chevrons.

[French789]

Dont have a picture but my main army as UP has 6 Line Inf with 4 chevrons each.
Served me well across Austria,Poland/Lithuania/Russia and now that army is fighting against the french/spanish.

[Timefool]

I found that with a lower number of units per battalion, units gain more experience. On lower unit numbers, for example, they rank up much faster than ultra unit size. Same goes when your unit is weakened to 1/4 strength.

[Seamless]

I think my most experienced unit was probably a 6th rate during my GB GC. I think a star and a chevron, can't remember exactly. But aye, she was a scurvy-ridden sea dog of a ship, she was. Sent many a poor soul to the bottom.

[caldwell77]

It was a brilliant July day when the post rider sped through town with the news. Independence! The Continental Congress had declared the 13 colonies would no longer be subjects of Great Britain. Washington gathered recruits in Boston and began training them to face the British. But men and arms would be needed well before they were ready. And so the Minutemen were born. And even as Washington's 1st Army of the Republic began to take shape, Exploits of the first Regiments of citizen soldiers began to be told in taverns and town halls. Tales of the liberation of Falmouth and Albany, and of the siege Philadelphia. I listened as a young man and envied those who had undertaken so noble an endeavor. And when a recruiter arrived in town, I wasted no time in signing my name to the ranks of American soldiers. A new regiment of Minutemen was to be formed. The 9th. As with the 8 before us, we would assemble quickly. We brought our own rifles and gear. We knew the terrain better than any Brit or Hessian. And soon we were seeing action.

The British were not content to surrender Philadelphia unfought. But I and my fellow neighbors stood firm against all they threw at us. Following the winter of 1777 we took the fight to them and Annapolis was next to join our ranks. Then we moved North as Washington's 1st Army was at last ready to trade volley for volley with the British main army in open field.

Soon the star spangled banner flew over Maine and Acadia, and we crossed the Alleganies bent on stemming the ever increasing tide of British brigades sent from Quebec. But we were no longer fighting pitched battles against neglected outposts. New France had been England’s Northern bastion ever since they’d forced out the French. Probing attacks across the St Laurent had gained us nothing. Quebec held, and native axillaries paid with English silver kept us on our heels. Then the Iroquois uprising ended the campaign and we were reformed into the new 2nd Army of Liberty under General Allen and marched south toward the great lakes.

But our numbers were steadily diminishing. Casualties during the Canadian campaign were nothing short of extreme. The 4th and 5th Minutemen had been wiped out in the Battle of Greenwood Pass in the Adirondacks. And several more regiments had to be disbanded to provide replacements. After 6 years of hard fighting only a handful of the 2 dozen Minutemen regiments raised remained intact. But we were battle hardened.

It was after Greenwood that General Allen mentioned in a brief dispatch to Washington how our own 9th had “stood stalwartly against the British cavalry in spite of heavy losses”. The name stuck, and soon he began referring to us as simply the Stalwart 9th. We had long used the European tradition of awarding battle chevrons for distinguished service. And most of our regiments had earned at least one. Although with such heavy losses as we often suffered, many of those chevrons had been lost with the floods new replacements. Then Washington, in an effort to raise unit morale, began issuing special unit citations. After a regiment had earned its second battle chevron it would then be classified as a “stalwart” unit. And it was the 9th’s example that the achievement was measured against. The citation itself was affixed with our regimental insignia as the first unit to merit the award. Given only to regular army line units, the designation was always attached to the end of the unit name, such as “1st Infantry of Foot, Stalwart”. That is for every unit except the 9th. We had officially remained the “Stalwart 9th” and were the only volunteer unit to ever receive the citation. Eventually a new Patriot citation was created for militia units who had earned a battle chevron and they would be called “Nth Militia, Patriot”

It was the supreme commander who best exonerated our service. “When the cost of this great struggle is finally tallied and the courage of free men is fully accounted for, let no man claim a higher honor than simply to say: ‘I served with the Stalwart 9th.’ ”
~ General George Wahington




They may not look like much, but they've done their share and more.

[Henry707]

It was a brilliant July day when the post rider sped through town with the news. Independence! The Continental Congress had declared the 13 colonies would no longer be subjects of Great Britain. Washington gathered recruits in Boston and began training them to face the British. But men and arms would be needed well before they were ready. And so the Minutemen were born. And even as Washington's 1st Army of the Republic began to take shape, Exploits of the first Regiments of citizen soldiers began to be told in taverns and town halls. Tales of the liberation of Falmouth and Albany, and of the siege Philadelphia. I listened as a young man and envied those who had undertaken so noble an endeavor. And when a recruiter arrived in town, I wasted no time in signing my name to the ranks of American soldiers. A new regiment of Minutemen was to be formed. The 9th. As with the 8 before us, we would assemble quickly. We brought our own rifles and gear. We knew the terrain better than any Brit or Hessian. And soon we were seeing action.

The British were not content to surrender Philadelphia unfought. But I and my fellow neighbors stood firm against all they threw at us. Following the winter of 1777 we took the fight to them and Annapolis was next to join our ranks. Then we moved North as Washington's 1st Army was at last ready to trade volley for volley with the British main army in open field.

Soon the star spangled banner flew over Maine and Acadia, and we crossed the Alleganies bent on stemming the ever increasing tide of British brigades sent from Quebec. But we were no longer fighting pitched battles against neglected outposts. New France had been England’s Northern bastion ever since they’d forced out the French. Probing attacks across the St Laurent had gained us nothing. Quebec held, and native axillaries paid with English silver kept us on our heels. Then the Iroquois uprising ended the campaign and we were reformed into the new 2nd Army of Liberty under General Allen and marched south toward the great lakes.

But our numbers were steadily diminishing. Casualties during the Canadian campaign were nothing short of extreme. The 4th and 5th Minutemen had been wiped out in the Battle of Greenwood Pass in the Adirondacks. And several more regiments had to be disbanded to provide replacements. After 6 years of hard fighting only a handful of the 2 dozen Minutemen regiments raised remained intact. But we were battle hardened.

It was after Greenwood that General Allen mentioned in a brief dispatch to Washington how our own 9th had “stood stalwartly against the British cavalry in spite of heavy losses”. The name stuck, and soon he began referring to us as simply the Stalwart 9th. We had long used the European tradition of awarding battle chevrons for distinguished service. And most of our regiments had earned at least one. Although with such heavy losses as we often suffered, many of those chevrons had been lost with the floods new replacements. Then Washington, in an effort to raise unit morale, began issuing special unit citations. After a regiment had earned its second battle chevron it would then be classified as a “stalwart” unit. And it was the 9th’s example that the achievement was measured against. The citation itself was affixed with our regimental insignia as the first unit to merit the award. Given only to regular army line units, the designation was always attached to the end of the unit name, such as “1st Infantry of Foot, Stalwart”. That is for every unit except the 9th. We had officially remained the “Stalwart 9th” and were the only volunteer unit to ever receive the citation. Eventually a new Patriot citation was created for militia units who had earned a battle chevron and they would be called “Nth Militia, Patriot”

It was the supreme commander who best exonerated our service. “When the cost of this great struggle is finally tallied and the courage of free men is fully accounted for, let no man claim a higher honor than simply to say: ‘I served with the Stalwart 9th.’ ”
~ General George Wahington




They may not look like much, but they've done their share and more.

Hey Caldwell,

I've not tried the American campaign yet - your narrative might just make me ditch my current GB game & go stateside. Nice write up - +REP.

Henri