Best way to level up the troops?

Hello there.
I've started to play to this mod (great one, btw), running the game with "normal" and "average" difficulty settings. Right now it seems to me that it takes a lot to level up the troops. I'm at Day 72 with 31 tier 4 units, 7 tier 5 and some slave hunters and slave crushers... If I try to attack a lord party with like 50 troops I do win, but I lose lots of troops cause of their low tier, I guess. The think is that farm bandits is becoming a bit boring; oh, talking of, which are the ones wich gives more exp?
I'm running with "normal" and "average" difficulty setting.
What do you think is the best way to exp the party, right now? I'll have to raise the trainer ability, but it will take some time.

I've already gave 2H (mostly) weapons to my companions in orther to get lots of prisioners, but right now I don't dare to fight parties with troops that I would recruit.

Do someone knows if changing the regulars_xp_multiplier affects only the player party of it's for AI too? I would like to do it, but I wouldn't like to make the game too easy.

And last thing: it's possible to raise the troops in every fight higher than 150? I've tried with "BattleSizer" software, but it says that it can't find the "options.dat" file.

Balancing army and trying to fight the easiest bandits around. I remember when i was playing with khergit units it was so easy to fight steppe bandits. The point is that your troops kill them and not you. Divide the enemy and you will win. Setting a few cavalry units a bit away from your main army will probably make bandits to divide theirselves. I used to run around the enemy and maybe some of them continúe to my army, then attack.
Other way for example is to try having a companion like a trainer or several companions with +2/3 trainer skills.
In the start its not so easy to get élite troops. Actually with only 50 troops you wont be able to sin huge armies without many casualities only rare situations.
Join a faction and try owning several settlements first. If you get a castle you could also be having those few high tier soldiers you get, once you get many of them you can take them back and voilá. Also making the order of recruit units in castles by default will make apear a balanced army in your castle/town. You can keep taking only those you like and rest stay inside as garrison.
Hope it helps a little.

I'm not having any issues with the bandits right now (they're all very easy to defeat having a 98 troops army), but with the low exp which I make killing them. It seems to get forever to level up elite troops.
Right now I'm fighting successfully the lords which runs with 30-40-50 troops or a bit more and it's going better. It's easy to trick them: I usually put archers in a hill, infatry at the middle of that hill and the cavalry much forward, then I approach alone the enemy army (which stays still), then I try to kill the lord and after that like 1/4 o the enemies tries to catch me while I run in circles and kill some of them with my bow. When the rest get near my army, after charging, I just command the cavalry to charge.

This makes the fights very easy with a low (or none) casualities. Is this supposed to be like this? In which cases do they actually charge? Maybe when the AI "thinks" to have a better army?

Also, I'm vasssal of the Vaergis, when I'll have a castle, do they'll automatically generate tier 5/6 troops? I use their archers in my army. And also, at what amount of relation they could decide to give to the player one? Thanks for the tip!

You're not going to get elite troops of any sort in a hurry, except for ones you rescue from lords and bandit swarms.  Top-tier infantry and cavalry are particularly bad, archers are at least a little easier because of the sheer number of kills they tend to rack up each fight, and I'm not dexterous enough at leading my horse archers to get them past their first rank alive anyway so I have no experience there.  But seriously, if you're after anything at T7 it's better to look at your target's prisoner column and recruit those, because otherwise you're only ever going to get a slow trickle.  T6 units are easier to get and keep, but even there it can be a long slog.

At a guess, the main problem you're probably having with your infantry being slaughtered is the troops you're using.  As Vaegirs, your infantry are some of the weakest in the game, with a low cap on armor, okay but slow and short melee weapons (though the blunt damage takes the edge off the enemy's armor), and mediocre shields at best.  Your archers and cavalry will have to compensate for that - you've got undeniably the best foot archers around, very powerful but slow horse archers, and excellent shock cavalry with a bit less staying power than the Sarranid or Swadian equivalents.  Khergit infantry have an extra tier or two of armor over yours, Nords have obscenely good armor, weapons, and shields, and Swadians tend to make up for middling equipment of their own with massive weapons and high power strike.  If you're in a position to train some Rhodoks they can fill the gap, and mercenary infantry are lethally effective and heavily armored, but until then your Vaegir footmen are really just finishers for the cavalry and meat shields for the archers.

You mentioned bandit hunting, and if you're up for it I'd suggest cleaning up Sea Raiders.  Mountain Bandits give fairly insignificant amounts of experience, Forest Bandits are a bit better and have some excellent drops, Steppe and Desert Bandits are almost all mounted, give mediocre experience, and tend to instakill unlucky troops with lances while riding circles around them with horsebows (and let's not even talk about the goddamned Black Khergits the Desert Bandits get...), and Tundra Bandits have some scary bows but are otherwise a fairly good farm - plus, if you're a Vaegir, they're in your hometown.  Sea Raiders generally have more valuable loot and can be considered as training for fighting Nords, though, so I'd tend to recommend them.  Even when you're rolling up noble parties too, fighting bandits can still be a worthy pasttime - after all, they'll intercept villagers and caravans and decrease the rent you get (or the troops your allies get) from provinces.

As for enemy party AI, yeah, it's pretty dense.  I've found three behaviors, more or less - the enemy will either swing slowly in a circle around the map until they eventually spiral into your line (which has probably been twisted out of position because of the poor tracking), they'll hold their position and wait for you to walk into their deathtrap (and they've got more patience than you do), or they'll just sound a general charge and you'll end up fighting their archers in melee before their infantry arrive (generally what your allied lords do in large-scale battles, which is incredibly annoying since there's no way to save them).  I have no idea what the different triggers are, only that knocking out the lord or a few troops can sometimes trigger a full charge.

Once you own a castle or town, you'll have the option to appoint a...er...I can't recall the title, but he directs garrison and patrol recruitment.  You pay up front to make him hire and train groups of new units, which tend to follow a level pattern similar to what AI lords get - a lot of T4s, a decent number of T5s, a very small number of higher tiers (if you're lucky), and a few straggling lower tiers.  It happens more or less automatically, but there's some interaction required at first and I forget if the process stops after a while.  I tend to play as a mercenary for as long as I can get away with, so my memory on lordship is a bit faulty, sorry.

As for getting that castle or town, they're not just going to hand it over to you.  Each kingdom keeps a couple of lordless villages to assign to newcomers, but every castle and especially every town is owned and garrisoned.  You want a castle of your own, you're going to have to ride out and conquer it yourself.  Vaegir archers make that as easy as it's going to get, at least, since even your low-tier troops have the damage, aim, and rate of fire to massacre a moderately sized garrison from the ground.  I'd advise picking a fight with the Khergits first, though, since their horsebows are much less effective in that sort of stand-up fight, while the Nords have their massive shields and powerful throwing weapons and the Swadians have archers only a little bit below your own to retaliate with.  Once you complete a siege that you initiated, you can request that the castle be given to you.  Most of the time you'll get it, unless you're Controversial from a recent Marshalship or demanding too many other fiefs in a short time.  Sometimes it'll be awarded to another lord even when you're an ideal candidate, but those are fairly rare occasions - a popular lord has just lost his land, the king gets selfish and claims it for himself, things like that.

I'm not really certain what else to say right now.  I don't think I've ever seen the error you mentioned with the battle resizer, for instance, mine works just fine.  Hopefully there are answers to that on other forums.  Same with the modding question you brought up - if it affects the amount of experience needed for promotion, then it'll only affect you since lord armies just recruit templates out of thin air (modified by the current wealth of their fiefs), but if it affects the experience gained per kill I have no idea.

I hope I've been able to help a bit!  Good luck with your campaign.

Phaenur, thank you very much for your time and help, sir. It has been very useful.

I'm sorry for a little misunderstanding: I'm a Vaegir's vassal, but I don't use only Vaegir's troops. In fact, I only use their archers aiming (with low hopes) to theirs T7. As infantry I own few T4 and T5 Rhodoks aiming to some Condottieri. As cavalry I'm using mainly Swadians, aiming to barons.
The thing is that I tend to use the few infatry units I possess as a shield for the archers, not using any formations. Which would you say is the best way to manage a fight with these components? As said, I put the archers in the nearest (or higher) hill around, infatry in the middle and cavalry much forward. I take advantage of the AI tendency of make some troops to just following me endlessly, to kills some and split their army, and when the rest charges I wait them to get near my mounted troops and then order cavalry to charge as well. Infatry just stays in hold, but I don't even know if they'll be of any helps when I'll be fighting bigger armies and I'll actually really need to defend my line of ranged units. Do you recommend any formations in general?

Hmm.  Rhodok pike troops are tricky beasts, definitely, and I've had bad luck with them even on lower difficulty settings.  They're not bad troops, not at all, and those polearms will ruin cavalry and stalled infantry, but the way this game handles polearm thrust damage can severely weaken them.  Plus, the "fix" in the options panel to make polearm infantry use only their polearms unless surrounded or ordered can end up with them stuck in a loop of switching weapons, which is really hazardous to their health.  For Rhodoks I'd suggest going with the Fante->Capitano di Ventura line, they've got high damage, amazing armor and shields, and don't need to worry about gaining experience up to T7 like the pike troops do.  The Provisionato->Guardia Ducale is pretty good too, though without shields they tend to take more casualties than I like in each round of combat.

For tactics, your "archers on a hill" position is pretty much exactly what I do.  I put my archers in ranks and order them to stand closer one or two times - I don't know if that actually does anything, it's just habit.  Infantry tend to show a bit too much discipline in formations and won't go to help the guy next to them, so I get them some depth with two or three stand closer orders and then just put them downhill and maybe a little left or right of my archers.  Generally I just have them hold and let the enemy crash into them, though I may order a charge or a "hold...and attack enemy infantry" (kind of luck-based when that works or not, and reinforcements mess it up even more) when the bulk of the enemy charge has stalled out.  Footmen are generally excellent units and can frequently mop up after a cavalry charge or rescue cavalry troops that got surrounded or dismounted, but don't expect too much of them below I4 or so.

One last thing, it can help to put your infantry in multiple command groups - have one for your shields, one for your pikes, and one for your greatswords - so you can tell them to do different things independently.  Make sure your shields are just barely in front of your spears, set up your shock infantry for a flank charge or countercharge, have your front line open up so your rear line can charge through, things like that.  If you put all of your infantry in one unit they'll concentrate the high ranks on the right and the low ranks on the left, and since the enemy does the same thing you'll generally butcher each other's recruits and then flank each other's veterans unless you're lucky, but dividing troops up can reduce that issue and maybe keep your low and midlevel troops alive longer (though you'll need them to, since your vets will start taking more casualties).  Archers and cav can benefit from the same thing, but there are fewer obvious divisions and less of an issue with the way the game builds your formation.

If you want to get fancy later on in a battle, consider circling your archers around to the side once the enemy reaches your lines, that way your own infantry will be even more out of the way and you can get behind their shields - alternately, you can bait them into turning around with cavalry for the same effect.  But that's more the AI freaking out over whatever unit is closest than anything else.  And it sounds like you already do that anyway.  Also, if you move out of position like that, be very careful of reinforcements.  Sometimes they'll slam right into your flank as they try to catch up with the old force, other times your troops will turn around to face the newcomers while there are still soldiers right next to them and all you can do is sob as the last two or three infantry roll your entire army.

As for cavalry tactics, I've got nothing.  I'm a fairly poor cavalry commander to begin with and tend to only run with a handful of them as a result, so at most I'll use them for sweeping an archer line or pursuing routed enemies.  Sometimes - sometimes! - I'll tell them to follow me and then order a charge or give them a position to hold on the far side of the enemy once we're in a nice long line along the formation, but that's really only good when the enemy is charging.  As for horse archers, I basically use them as mobile artillery instead of circling or darting in and out, but again that's my personal preference and dubious skill at the game showing through.  From everything I've read, true Mongol-style horse archer command requires a lot of micromanagement, and I, personally, am just not that good at it.  About the only thing I can suggest, which you probably already consider, is terrain awareness - you want your cavalry to have a reasonable length of slow downhill or flat ground to build momentum on as they charge.  It only really affects the first attack, but if every one of your riders lances their first target then that's a lot fewer enemies to deal with once the momentum stalls.

As one last (somewhat cheesy) tip, if you see your archers running out of arrows and swapping to their swords, don't hesitate to retreat.  Swadia's A5 branches are okay melee units, Rhodok A6 and A7 d'Assedio troops are basically their I6 with an arbalest, but most other archers won't contribute much or survive very well if they have to join the fight.  If your main power comes from your archers, retreating and returning to battle can keep them firing and whittle down even vastly larger armies over time.  The same goes for sieges if you've got good engineering skill and only have to build ladders - keep flattening the garrison with your archers until they finally have fewer bodies than you have arrows.  Ladders with low skill or siege towers at any skill take too long to construct for this to work, though, and someone will catch up with you and force you into a field battle instead.

Again, Phaenur, thank you very much.
Time to put in practice your suggestions in my campaign.

My best characters were mongol and vaegir. Both ended being called kings but only one of them were finally called the King of calradia, and it was the mongol one.
Besides all tactics i think that a huge mass of medium-high tier of cavalry can erases everything on the battlefield. As i used to built a personal security squad made of companions dressed as cherbi's/mangudai's. This used to be the front of my attack as they never die.
Never had problems with rhodoks so much with their weird tactics. I used to lead as a mix cherbi/mangudai too, firstly setting a líne of heavy chavalry not so close to each other, while i set archer cavalry to follow me to till the back of the enemy(if i find a hill much better) once AI starts to lose some troops they use to charge. I say my chavalry archers to stop shooting and charge them from both sides most of the times this means a huge and relatively fast masacre. I only remember to have problems with sarranids as this tactic is kinda useless. I really enjoyed feeling like genghis Khan ^^. Ended for fun looting the full black kerghit outfit.
Remember that if you face any cavalry faction the élite chargers are much dangerous than any other cavalry out there(even low tier units can one hit anything with polearms).
As vaegir i always was pissed off when i lose my archers , used full vaegir units so this mean a line of low tier infantry that i wasnt giving a **** for them, they were trained rlly fast to t5. Heh...mostly archers in a hill, cavalry in a flank a bit far away and with perseverance and maybe luck too, i was acting like a t7 archer with a dangerous 2 handed weapon for the close combat, some long axe i think.
I bet you will success in your vaegir campaign. Good luck