Weapon upgrades and experience not applying correctly

Hail all other CoW fiends and players,

During my years playing Medieval 2 and associated mods, I have come across the following errors although they affect the game randomly and without recourse.

Even though I have the correct buildings for weapon upgrades to new and retrained units, and those assigning experience to new units created, sometimes this does not apply itself to the new/retrained units.

Now this is annoying, and there are many examples in my current Sylvanian campaign where I can't apply these bonuses to retrained/new units, and I wondered if anyone else had ever experienced this, and any fixes?

I'm on most current English translation, and yes the city/castle can recruit/retrain the units in question (in this case both Grave Guard and Vampiric Knights).

Any ideas?

Hold on a sec, so, the graveguards and stuff you had from the start already had their fancy weaponupgrades, so now you built a weaponsmith, but the thing doesn't give the 'newer' units (units you just built) any weaponsupgrades and all in all for now just proves to be an enormous waste for 6k gold?

Because, if yes, then I have a solution to your problem.

Originally Posted by sithi

Because, if yes, then I have a solution to your problem.

So did you build me up just to knock me down... or do you have a solution to a similar problem?

I'm all ears...

And hopefully any info we provide may help others or even this problem may have been identified and addressed elsewhere before... you never know.

Well, my solution would have been to change some entries in the export_descr_unit, there is a still persistent spelling mistake with almost half of Sylvanias units. Their skeletons and graveguard are set to weapon_simple, while they should be weapon_blade. But I suppose you already corrected that yourself?

Originally Posted by sithi

Well, my solution would have been to change some entries in the export_descr_unit, there is a still persistent spelling mistake with almost half of Sylvanias units. Their skeletons and graveguard are set to weapon_simple, while they should be weapon_blade. But I suppose you already corrected that yourself?

Actually no I've not played around with the edu file at all, and in fact since Shogun 2 came out I've not been doing much except play that!

I'll look at the edu later tonight and change it as appropriate. Is that an error by the mod team to leave it as simple type, or deliberate?

Thanks for that Sithi, rep for you for highlighting that for me. The Ewoks are grateful.

Sithi, thanks for your reply. Let me add my clarification as below:

In locations with weaponsmith and/or other experience adding buildings:

When I recruit it does one of three things:
1) Recruits with applicable weapon and experience upgrade
2) Recruits with either weapon or experience
3) Recruits with neither

Then, sometimes I will be able to retrain the unit I just trained at additional cost, and this may or may not apply the experience or weapons.

Furthermore, units that can be given upgrades will not always be given the option to retrain for the weapon or experience upgrade, for example I create X unit at a location with no weaponsmith, then move X to location with a weaponsmith, but am not given the option to retrain to upgrade their weapons.

It really makes no sense.

A case in point is Blood Keep, the most Westerly Sylvanian possession. This castle has a unique building that gives 3 extra experience to all new units, yet this does not apply correctly most of the time and the unit has to be retrained at extra expense.

Your comment about it being a waste is only partially true as sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I am interested in hearing your solution please.

Ah, that thing, thought you meant something different. Anyway, have that too, its quite strange, well, for me it is more that I always get the weaponupgrade, but never the experience.

isnt this issue the same that has plagued medieval 2 from its release?

Originally Posted by Valiant Champion

isnt this issue the same that has plagued medieval 2 from its release?

Well I have certainly encountered it since Vanilla Medieval 2, I just wondered if this was an issue that had either been addressed or was fixable.

If it's simply a case of incorrect game mechanics due to some programming fubar then there is nothing I can do I guess...

trying not to hijack the thread but have always been curious. If a unit is retrained to have more experience but the experience fails, does it still cost money?

Originally Posted by Valiant Champion

trying not to hijack the thread but have always been curious. If a unit is retrained to have more experience but the experience fails, does it still cost money?

Yes.

I have the same problem with Medieval 2 and Kingdoms and all mods for Medieval 2. It's a glitch that really freaks me out but there is no permament solution for it.

you could always remove all the exp upgrades in the descr_buildings. than all units would have to earn their experience.

Another solutions (which I use but it's rather frustrating) is to remember that
- when you load a saved game and you know you have units being build/retrained you must remove them from the queue and set them on it again (that way no money are wasted because the upgrades won't be aplied if you don't do it)
- when you go into battle and then return again you must remove the process

This is the biggest flaw of M2 for me and the solutions are moderate at best. Why CA didn't fix it I have no idea.

Alright, let me post here how you give your skeletons and graveguard their weapon-upgrades:

Open the export_descr_unit.txt in the data folder, of course.

Here, the skeleton spear unit for example:

type Vampire skeleton spears
dictionary Vampire_skeleton_spears ; Peasants
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Light
banner faction main_spear
banner holy crusade
soldier Vampire_skeleton_spears, 60, 0, 1
attributes sea_faring, can_withdraw, very_hardy, mercenary_unit, free_upkeep_unit
move_speed_mod 0.9
formation 1, 1, 2, 2, 6, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 6, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_simple, piercing, spear, 0, 1
stat_pri_attr spear
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 1, 2, 4, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, leather
stat_heat 0
stat_ground 0, 0, -3, 0
stat_mental 3, normal, highly_trained, lock_morale ;8$+1$
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 600, 120, 100, 100, 600, 6, 1690
armour_ug_levels 0, 3, 3, 3
armour_ug_models Vampire_skeleton_spears, Vampire_skeleton_spears_ug1, Vampire_skeleton_spears_ug1, Vampire_skeleton_spears_ug1
ownership hungary, slave
recruit_priority_offset 40

Note the underlined, bold melee_simple.
This should actually be melee_blade, as only this way it is able to be upgraded. There are many units afflicted by this, specifically the skeleton spears, normal skeletons, graveguard, vampire black knights, skeleton mount. And yes, the skeletons get their nice new weapon models with the upgrades.

I changed it for me and it works perfectly. It simply creates a nice feeling in your stomach when your legions of darkness are equipped with morningstars instead of bare bones.

Alright, there was also a severe bug with the skeleton crossbows. Their standard undead attributes do not apply, effectively rendering them nothing but standard weak crossbows.

Ok, look at this:

type Vampire skeleton crossbow
dictionary Vampire_skeleton_crossbow
category infantry
class missile
voice_type Light
banner faction main_missile
banner holy crusade
soldier Vampire_skeleton_crossbow, 50, 0, 1.2
attributes sea_faring, can_withdraw, crossbow, mercenary_unit, free_upkeep_unit, very_hardy
formation 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 5, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 6, 2, light_crossbow_low, 155, 35, missile, missile_mechanical, piercing, none, 0, 1
stat_pri_attr ap
stat_sec 6, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, sword, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 3, 2, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 0
stat_ground 0, -1, -2, 0
stat_mental 7, normal, highly_trained, lock_morale
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 800, 160, 100, 100, 800, 4, 1000
armour_ug_levels 2
armour_ug_models Vampire_skeleton_crossbow
ownership hungary, slave
recruit_priority_offset 50

In the standard EDU file, the underlined, bold attributes do not exist, they do however exist for all others of VC's units, the lock_morale grants the fearlessness of the undead, while very_hardy grants them their high fatigue, without them the skeletons would be nothing but utterly useless crap, as they would run from anything and get tired extremely fast.

just add the bold, underlined attributes and the crossbows have their undead feeling back.

Have fun playing.

OK, further to the other posts here I can report that weapon type, in the edu, does effect whether you can retrain a unit and upgrade their weapons.

I tried changing the undead weapon types of Graveguard and Vampire Knights to melee_blade from melee_simple and this then let me retrain/upgrade as normal.

Voila! Mystery solved! Kudos to Sithi for this idea and rep for him too!

you guys have it all wrong.

http://movieclips.com/b3c8H-army-of-...he-battle-car/

Originally Posted by Valiant Champion

you guys have it all wrong.

http://movieclips.com/b3c8H-army-of-...he-battle-car/

Well I hope in my Sylvanian campaign I don't have to fight Bruce Campbell, I don't fancy my odds.