Smackus Maximus
Legionary
posted 19 October 2007 09:22 EDT (US)
I have been searching through a couple of threads on combat experince, and have read many conflicting throughts in relation to experience and how it is gained. First off, apologies for another thread on the topic - I will list my queries by number and hopefully iron out exactly what is truth and what is speculation.
I hope so anyway, I seem to find very little correlation between kills and experience gained. Please indicate the degree of certainty who hold to your answer.
Here we go;
1). Is there a direct link between number of kills and chevrons gained?
2). Is this modified by unit size - i.e. do Arcani/Druids (32) gain exp chevrons quicker than Hastati etc (80) who gain exp chevrons equicker than bowmen/peasants (120).
3). Is this modified by unit quality - no matter what I do, elephants, pharoh's bowmen etc simply do not gain chevrons, while the likes of Hastati/Iberian infantry seem to gain experience far quicker, despite numerous casulties.
4). Is there a clear formula to exp chevron gain - I personally reckon if their is it is different for each type of unit.
5). Do the number of kills required to advance a chevron increase significantly after each chevron gained - it appears so to me.
6). Why do you gain vastly larger amounts of experinece with auto-resolve, sometimes you even make gains with a few or no kills.
7). How do killed routers factor into exp gain? I have found that 1/5th of standard exp (suggested in a previous thread) is pretty close to the mark, definitely far less experience.
In summary - elite troops seem to almost never gain exp chevrons (despite loads of kills, and low casualties), auto-resolve gives you way more exp chevrons than battle on map, and troops with a few chevrons have to kill significantly more troops than a lowly bronze chevron troop in orderto advance a chevron.
BastWorshiper
Sensei
posted 19 October 2007 09:47
EDT (US)
1 / 12
I've been trying to clear some of this up myself, though I'll answer the best I can:
1. There is definitely a direct link between kills and chevrons gained, but there are clearly other factors involved. What all the other factors are, I have no idea.
2. The game tracks experience for each individual within a unit; so presumably if a smaller unit had the same number of kills as a larger unit, the smaller unit would gain experience quicker because each individual within the unit has more kills.
3. This may be one of those other factors mentioned in the first answer.
4. Don't know.
5. Without doubt. There is an old thread I couldn't find where a couple of forummers did tests in custom battles and found something like an exponential increase in required kills to gain the next chevron. IIRC, you needed a number of kills around the size of the unit to gain one chevron, 4x the size of the unit for the second chevron and 10x the size of the unit for the third chevron. I don't vouch for their testing methods, but my experience indicates this is at least correct-ish.
6. IMO, when you use auto-resolve more of the kills are against active units, as opposed to routing units. Also, if you lose a few low-experience individuals in a unit, it can bring the average experience of the unit up. I have had units gain a chevron with neither kills nor casualties, though; so I assume units gain some small amount of experience just for participating in a battle.
7. This is probably accurate.
I hope this is helpful, and I eagerly await responses from other forummers.
Smackus Maximus
Legionary
posted 19 October 2007 10:04
EDT (US)
3 / 12
I have few doubts that elite troops gain chevrons slower than mainstream units. I slaughtered an entire fort of 943 Mecedonians yesterday with 5 units of Pharoh's bowmen, and I didn't gain a single chevron.
MrBonzai211
Legionary
posted 19 October 2007 10:25
EDT (US)
4 / 12
I keep hearing people say that sometimes experience is gained when the troops haven't done anything....
Well, in the unit bios for the roman armies, it makes specific note that as the soldiers grow older they graduate to more elite units.
So...... could it be that as troops age they grow experience away from the battle field?
BastWorshiper
Sensei
posted 19 October 2007 11:08
EDT (US)
5 / 12
Max, were your Bowmen already experienced?
I haven't noticed it myself, but it has been suggested by others that kills gained from missile attacks do not count as much as kills gained from melee. To be honest, I seriously doubt this. When I play missile-dependent factions, my archers end up being by far my most-experienced units.
I doubt that units gain experience through aging. I don't believe units age. I've had a couple of units of Iberian infantry, town watch, and naked warriors for more than 80 years in my current Spanish campaign. If they're still battle-worthy, they are not aging.
Krymzon74
Legionary
posted 20 October 2007 01:11
EDT (US)
7 / 12
Hey Smackus, I've been trying to figure these things out myself. Haven't had much success but will share what I've observed.
1. Yes, but I also think that each type of unit has a number of kills they have to reach before exp is gained.
2. Yes, smaller units gain exp way faster than "normal" sized units. I use gladiators and arcani often and they always end up with maxed exp long before any of my legion units get their first silver chevron. The exception to this rule seems to be cavalry units. Smaller numbers in the unit compared to infantry, but they get exp at about the same rate. This could be because they kill so many routers however.
3. There's no doubt in my mind that elite units gain exp slower than regular ones. To give a current example I have a unit of urban cohort travelling in one of my city assault armies. They're always the first through the gates in barbarian settlements and first over the wall for civilized ones. First through the breach means they'll spend the most time in actual combat. They've killed hundreds of enemies but their exp hasn't budged. (Kinda like your pharoh's bowmen example) My legionary cohorts have killed less than the urbans but have started gaining exp. The four units of archers in that army have killed about the same as the legionary cohort and they all have one and two silver chevrons. (These troops all came w/ three chevrons of exp from temple upgrades.) I have noticed however that when playing as Carthage my Sacred Bands seem to gain exp slower than Poeni Infantry. Same with armoured war elephants and war elephants.
4. I think it's different per unit as well. I've seen peasants get 20 kills and gain a chevron while a legionary cohort unit kills over 100 and gains nothing.
5. Yes. Those gold ones take forever to earn.
6. I don't know. Presumably it's because the auto-resolve keeps enemies in combat longer before routing them. The exp gained from auto-resolve combats appears to be completely out of whack though as many have said. It just seems to give out exp way too quickly compared to when a human actually fights the battle. I've actually done a save, auto-resolve, then reloaded from save and fought the battle myself. The results were 4 new chevrons of exp for my army in auto-resolve, and none for the battle I fought myself. Something is broken here.
7. Routers are worth 1/5 the usual exp.
I have also noticed that the legionares I hold in reserve during a city fight will sometimes gain and lose exp from just standing there doing nothing. I always hold two units back, that way I conserve the army a little and can immediately take more territory, or just rest units that are really banged up and would be in danger of being lost. They don't participate in the battle, 0 losses 0 kills. Yet they gain and lose exp from time to time. For this phenomenon I've seen no good explanation.
I've seen a lot of people also say that 1 kill is 1 kill it doesn't matter if it was a peasant or a general. I'm not too sure about this because of the things I've seen. You know those fights where you catch an enemy general all by himself or with a unit or two of troops? These always seem to yield exp for some reason. Maybe it's because the troops killed are under the command of an actual general? Maybe the exp value of general's bodyguard is more? Maybe the units that gained exp were just due for it? I don't know, there's lots of factors to consider, it just seems unit quality of those killed has something to do with exp gained.
Anyway, I play with normal unit sizes, hard or very hard difficulty depending on civ.
LloydBrown
Legionary
posted 20 October 2007 09:44
EDT (US)
8 / 12
It would be nice to have more concrete information on this valuable topic.
I recently had my first gold-stripers in my Seleucid campaign. Militia cav, of all things. I have one gold stripe and several units of 3-silvers in the same army.
I've been using them to beat up light cav or light infantry until they run out of missiles, then pursue routers or beat on the flank or rear of an undecided battle. They've been inflicting great damage with few losses.
mikecz
Legionary
posted 20 October 2007 12:54
EDT (US)
10 / 12
Yeah, cav units & especially your family generals seem to gain experience the easiest. Even tho chasing down routers gains less experience per kill, there are often SO MANY that the XP builds anyway. As much as possible, I like to kill everyone if I can - no survivors to bother me any more.
I fight with my generals a lot. Early in their career, I'll admit I look for "easy" targets for them - peasants, spear chuckers, slingers, archers (but not Pharaoh's archers - ouch!) These are all big & bigger units so you pile up kills quick & pretty soon your guy has a couple silver chevrons & in a while a gold or 2. It really helps to have these guys out on the leading, bleeding edge of your expanding empire. Along with the chevrons they'll about surely get combat traits & retinue making them even better generals.
I'm not sure if experience has anything to do with morale, but it has an obvious boost to attack & defense - each chevron boosts both attack & defense by 1, so a guy with a gold chevron (= 7 experience) does 7 more damage & has 7 better defense than his brother or cousin with no experience. These high experience guys can charge into and stay amongst tougher & tougher enemy units longer, piling up still more experience while providing morale boost for your nearby troops. Uhhh.... sometimes they die, as heroes, of course!
TRAIN UP BY FIGHTING!
redeyes200
Legionary
posted 27 October 2007 13:33
EDT (US)
12 / 12
once i surronded a general and killed him but moments later the unit gained a chevron creepy, but they died later regardless