Upgrading units leads to loss of experience points :O

[thomson_2001]

sorry if this is old news to some, but i just noticed that when you upgrade your troops they lose a fair amount of experience points, but not the upgrades. had a level 6 knight with 24/28 exp pts. when i upgraded to cavalry it dropped to 10/28 but was still level 6 and kept all previous upgrades (5 stars )

guess makes sense. give a batallion skilled in weilding lances/swords a gun and it would take them longer to master the new weapon - but wouldnt lose the core skills already drummed into them over the years.

so upgrading has to be tactical...interesting lol

 

[MrCynical]

When upgraded a unit loses any xp over 10, though it retains promotions. Having a great general attached to the unit prevents this, but is obviouly impractical for general use.

 

[thomson_2001]

thats mental....so you could be on 30ish exp and drop to ten again thus requiring LOADS to getto next level..... wow

 

[TravellingHat]

Didn't know that.

Harsh.

 

[thomson_2001]

sucks cos i was so close to more promotions then after upgrading my knights took me aaaagggeeesss to get cavalry up to next level. my new cavalry with stable, barracks, west point and 2 settled generals was coming out with about 15 exp pts off the bat, althought they wouldnt have the upgrades my knights had still works out at about 4 upgrades with no gold cost of upgrading. wonder how this affects the "create new vs upgrade old" arguments.

 

[Soneji]

I don't think it does. If you get cav before anyone, even with the lower XP you are still on to a win. In my games I am reliant on upgrades, as deleting my old army and starting afresh everytime I have newer more modern troops (eg. sword > mace) it would seriously drop me behind.

You pick up the XP points again by starting a war with your new improved, and unparralled army.

 

[TravellingHat]

It does put a different slant on upgrading. To my mind there are various factors:

1. What xp can you build new units at?

2. How close is the unit to it's next promotion? Is it worth looking for a few easy victories to get that before upgrading? Is it just a poorly promoted garrison that would lose no xp, but benefit from up-teching?

3. What tech are you facing? Can you afford to continue with older units, or do you need the new technology and need it now?

As an aside, can anyone tell me are GG points dependent on the number of xp you gather, or the number of promotions? If the former, you could see this as an opportinuty for a unit to reap some more GG points for you. A rather humble consolation though. If the latter... c'est la guerre.

This makes me even more dedicated to charismatic.

 

[Pfeffersack]

As an aside, can anyone tell me are GG points dependent on the number of xp you gather, or the number of promotions? If the former, you could see this as an opportinuty for a unit to reap some more GG points for you. A rather humble consolation though. If the latter... c'est la guerre.

Gained GG points = gained EXP

except:

Imperialistic trait gives you: EXP*2 = GG points
Great Wall gives you: EXP*2 = GG points (for fights on your territory)

both counting together adds to EXP*3 = GG points

 

[TravellingHat]

Thanks for clarifying that.

 

[IglooDame]

When upgraded a unit loses any xp over 10, though it retains promotions. Having a great general attached to the unit prevents this, but is obviouly impractical for general use.

Sort of correct - the unit loses any xp over what was required for its most recent promotion. If you've got a unit with 19xp, and it just got another promotion, it'll drop back down to 17xp. I think the required points to the next level bump up one level as well, but I'm not certain about that.

So I either try to upgrade units either at 10xp or below, or 17-18xp, to minimize the xp loss.

Edit: apparently I'm not remembering correctly after all, so disregard.

 

[Quagga]

This upgrade/XP issue is something to consider but not live in fear of.

For example, you do want to upgrade your CRIII macemen to riflemen or grenadiers, since you can't get City Raider promotions on gunpowder units.

But, you may not want to do this when you are just one or two experience points from the next promotion. Instead, bring those macemen along to the next battle and get them promoted to the next level. Then upgrade them to the modern unit.

 

[onedreamer]

Sort of correct - the unit loses any xp over what was required for its most recent promotion. If you've got a unit with 19xp, and it just got another promotion, it'll drop back down to 17xp. I think the required points to the next level bump up one level as well, but I'm not certain about that.

So I either try to upgrade units either at 10xp or below, or 17-18xp, to minimize the xp loss.

Uhm, nope. Upgrading will ALWAYS result in a loss of xp down to 10. MrCynical has it right.

 

[Venger]

Yeah, I actually reported this as a bug a month or so ago, didn't realize it. It makes some sense, certainly, but it's a little harsh. Might like to see that XP loss dialed back, just a bit, to maybe half points over 10, so a 34 point unit would drop to 22 instead of 10. But, it's a sound concept, the unit IS more powerful and does retain all upgrades so it isn't a loss of combat effectiveness, so I can't fault the thinking behind it.

 

[Elandal]

I'd like to have the XP loss at eg. "last level worth" or alike - so that you have to fight to get back to where you were before upgrade, but not so much that you know you will never gain another promotion anymore.
Unfortunatelly XML modding won't work here, as XML defines simple cutoff point.

 

[peter450]

It's that way for balance reasons and is not a bug, it's been that way since vanilla, and is to ensure that running around with level 7 or 8 troops is not the norm unless there powerful warlord units

 

[IglooDame]

Uhm, nope. Upgrading will ALWAYS result in a loss of xp down to 10. MrCynical has it right.

Oops, I must be remembering it wrong then, thanks for the correction.

 

[Loopy]

Key is to plan your promotions. Either save your upgrades below the cap if you know you're going to promote, or in the case of the first post, you might want try and get those 4 XP, add the promotion, and then upgrade.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That is one thing I think could be used to improve the Military Science tech, make it raise that XP bar to ~20 (and possibly decrease the Cost of upgrading ~25%, making upgrading something to be encouraged more.)

 

[zienth]

That is one thing I think could be used to improve the Military Science tech, make it raise that XP bar to ~20 (and possibly decrease the Cost of upgrading ~25%, making upgrading something to be encouraged more.)

That sounds like a really good idea.

Regarding the current situation:

So how does this effect units with enough XP for a promotion that haven't been promoted yet? For example, suppose I have a Combat III unit with 20XP, so it's listed as 20/10XP (assuming I'm remembering the promotion points correctly: 2, 5, 10, 18, 28 right?) If I promote it, then upgrade, it would be Combat IV and 10/28, right? If I don't promote, but upgrade, would it now be Combat III and 10/18 or 10/28?

I've just recently gotten into the habit of not using promotions as soon as I get the opportunity so I can use them more effectively when I actually need them. But I guess I need to be careful about doing upgrades on unpromoted units.

It would be nice if the unit kept any unused XP beyond it's current promotions. So if you were at 20/28 (assuming my breakpoints above are correct), you'd have 2 unused XP (20-18), so you'd be 12/28 after an upgrade.

Zienth

 

[KrikkitTwo]

^ breakpoints basically right, they are N*N+1
so
2
5
10
17
26
37
50
65
82
101...

and that is how it works, the ideal time to uppgrade is when you have Just enough exp for the next promotion.. promote and then get the next level.