loosing experience in battle

[Gelgoog]

well i was just fighting milan, and sent my general in to attack his general. i was happy because i had gotten him to 4 experience, and then when im battered down to like 5 guys left with my general i pull him away from the fight ( not routed) and notice he is now at 2 experience WTF? you can loose experience? i didnt even rout, just pulled him away before he got slaughtered, anyone have this happen?

[VaultDweller]

The experience shown on the unit card is an average value. Every individual soldier actually has their own level of experience. If the soldiers that died were high experience men, and the survivors were not, then the end result is a lower average for the unit as a whole.

So, no, you didn't lose experience, per se. You lost experienced men and are left with less experienced ones. You can observe the same effect when you take a depleted high-experience unit and retrain it; it will be filled with fresh rookie recruits, and so the average experience of the unit shown on the card will be reduced.