Units don't gain experience?

[beeawwb]

Hi everyone,

So I'm setting up my game and it's been a while since I've been in a Civ game. Last time for me was Civ 2. Anyway, I'm playing through and I come across the "West Point" wonder, which requires a level 5 unit.

Problem is, all my units are Level 4. So I send all my best level 4 units into the barbarian "new world" and build a city. Lo and behold, they're all getting attacked. My musketmen and longbowmen are all defending their hardest. Battle after battle... But experience stays at 10/17.

So I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, would there be any reason my units aren't gaining any experience through battle? Or am I just not being patient enough?

Thanks for all your help in advance,

-Bob

(Ps, I'm playing on the 2nd lowest difficulty level as I get myself used to the game, would this have any effect? And I'm using patch 1.51)

 

[scienide09]

Welcome to the forums!

You're units are not gaining more experience because there is a cap set on how many XP a unit can get from barbarians. As you've seen, that number is 10.

 

[Nyvin]

This is an understandable but silly idea they added. I mean, even if your out in some jungle fighting natives over and over you'd still be getting 'experience' of some kind.

What it really should be is industrial age units or some other late game era units can't get XP from barbarians anymore, that'd make more sense to me anyway.

 

[Sisiutil]

There's a great scene in Edward Rutherford's Sarum where a Roman general and his troops march up to a walled British town that is in resistance. As the legionairies begin their orderly preparations to take the town with barely a word of instruction, the general sits down and begins writing his dispatch to Rome describing how the city was taken. No sense wasting time, he figures.

In one of Colleen McCullough's Rome novels, she describes two or three legions easily wading through over a hundred thousand disorganized Britons rebelling under Boadicea--like crap through the proverbial goose.

Would soldiers truly gain any valuable experience--meaning knowledge of new tactics or battle techniques that would result in a Civ-style specialist promotion--from such one-sided battles against clearly inferior opponents? No. The cap on XPs from battles with barbarians makes total sense to me.

 

[Lord Chambers]

More importantly, it prevents barbarian farming like in Civ3.

 

[Woobi]

In fact, there should be more restriction...

10xp and age limits...

I mean a marine fighting an axeman does not warrent XP for the marine...

He has a gun, the warrior has a club...

Even I could win that fight...

 

[beeawwb]

Ahhh, thanks for the enlightenment on that one.

It's an interesting point of discussion I think. I agree that yes, there probably should be a 'cap' or limit on the amount of XP given, but when you consider some factors, I begin to wonder.

Eg, my Macemen / Longbowmen vs their Macemen / Longbowmen. Theoretically, they're the same units, I don't see why they shouldn't be gaining something from it. Even if it's only 1/20th of what they should be getting.

I guess it's just annoying when you have 2 or 3 units defending off a never ending swarm and sitting at 10/17.

Off to wage war on Catherine I guess.

-Bob

 

[Older than Dirt]

The cap on barbarian animals XP is 5, IIRC. Too bad they disappear so soon even on Terra Maps in the New World. I'd like to see a bear kill one of my tanks; it might be as funny as elephants goring my tanks until the turrets pop off.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

At least some jabroni with a club won't be offing a battleship like happenned to me in Civ I!