How is Medicine going for you? My INT character got 123 Medicine at day 287.

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

The removal of the "main level reduces all skill learning" has been a big help for all skills, however I feel Medicine is still a bit slow and awkward to raise up. Getting to 123 is a good milestone for me because this exceeds the starting medicine of the aserai surgeon wanderers. Though you're not guaranteed 1 will spawn it feels like anytime I start an INT build one is present at the game's start, immediately challenging the point of doing medicine on MC. Do I take a jump to 122 or keep building my MC on medicine? If you specked into it already in character creation this brutal mogging makes you feel you messed up. But I wanted to see how long to surpass then.

My way of raising medicine I call the 1/2 and 1/2, I use about half good troops I can defeat a party and 1/2 trash troops I intend to get kill, so I can keep building medicine. AT first I use mostly trash and just a tiny escort and just let forest bandits obliterate my trash troops over and over. Once I get to a bigger party size like 60-80 or so I move to lords because I can defeat single lord with 40 HA troops, this lets me ram another 40 miscellaneous troops into the enemy for medicine every battle. I use forced recruit to refill troops as I go. When I get bigger I pile on more trash. Also getting wanderers and ramming them in too help because they give exp as they heal too. I feel like I have to do this to raise medicine because I know from many past games that one I use a full powered party and play seriously I will almost never get downed units and barely gain any medicine.

The downside is of course I'm fighting at 1/2 strength, if I packed in full HA I could take armies and lord clusters. This is the conundrum of medicine: I want it to lessen troop loss, but I can barely raise it because I have little troop loss.

Some months ago there was talks of adjustment or alt ways to gain the skill, but I haven't heard any news recently.
@SadShogun any chance of news on medicine skill adjustment or alt means to raise it coming soon?

Anyways, I would like to know how medicine goes for other players, with an emphasis on the day of game along with the level you get medicine?

I feel Medicine is a skill you benefit the most from if you can get it high early, but it seems a bit too slow still.

 

[Lazregamesh]

hippocratic oath + Seiges, it is a gold mine for doctors.

 

[Philozoraptor]

I managed to skill up mine hired surgeon a lot. I just fight a lot of battles with lot of troops involved and it seem to skill up medicine decently enough. Obviously you need to get to the point of big battles, for that you need large group size, possibly army too and control over it which needs influance.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I managed to skill up mine hired surgeon a lot. I just fight a lot of battles with lot of troops involved and it seem to skill up medicine decently enough. Obviously you need to get to the point of big battles, for that you need large group size, possibly army too and control over it which needs influance.

Your army troops don't give you medicine skill, only thier party leader. What day in game (shows on save) and skill level di you get?

 

[black_bulldog]

Yeah that's pretty much how I leveled my medicine skill, and back before it got nerfed I loved to use a bow/crossbow with blunt ammo. It was a nice way to level up archery or crossbow and medicine.

 

[Philozoraptor]

Your army troops don't give you medicine skill, only thier party leader. What day in game (shows on save) and skill level di you get?

Day 1182, medic was first hero I hired, started with skill 60 I think and she got 155 skill now, but once she reached 100+ wounded to death ratio started to be very good. What do you mean that medic does not skill up from friedly troops? In battles my lords leading their own groups and my medic get "random" skill ups during battle, my assumtion was that medicine XP was procing every time medic / leader try to save troop, aka every time friendly soldiers falls.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Day 1182, medic was first hero I hired, started with skill 60 I think and she got 155 skill now, but once she reached 100+ wounded to death ratio started to be very good. What do you mean that medic does not skill up from friedly troops? In battles my lords leading their own groups and my medic get "random" skill ups during battle, my assumtion was that medicine XP was procing every time medic / leader try to save troop, aka every time friendly soldiers falls.

Thanks you for your data. Your surgeon only gets medicine skill ups from the troops in your own party getting downed, the troops in other parties have thier own party leader as thier surgeon. So for your (surgeon) own medicine the army isn't useful other then as potential clean up crew for after you own troops have been downed, which I have done before. If you're not using army parties in a controlled way it actually will hinder you as you have no control over what troops the enemy is killing, so what I would do is just give clan parties say all ranged or all HA and have everything else in my own party, which I charge in first to get medicine skill, then clean up with the ranged units. This worked okay when I tried it but I actually dislike being a vassal, army is expensive and slow, making the process more complicated then using a single party with both good troops and trash troops.

Anyway, IMO 1182 is very late in the game and 155 is very modest skill, though I agree by 100+ medicine's effect seems noticeable and valuable.

 

[anoddhermit]

@ Day 824 with 8 Int 4 Focus, Medicine Level is 172

Medicine is definitely slow to level if you don't go out of your way, I'm at 301 Steward by comparison.

I would do things differently next time, this was not a game I made an effort to grind medicine in although I did use "fodder" in some battles where I'd send in looters I picked up in ahead of my regular troops.

I agree it's counter-intuitive that you basically have to lose more troops than you normally would to get more out of it. Not sure how that could be fixed though, just increasing XP would still favor the same approach.

After 125, Sieges w/Siege Medic perk seem to be the best way to grind it since you get way more KOs instead of fatalities from them.

 

[veronicaaltoids]

I have played 1.6.1 version, I have NPC with MED skill initially 120, now is 200, took 700+ days to level up like that
EXTREMELY slow
OMG

and I can't choose which skills perks I want
for example, it come with perrk "station" or "walk it off", it choose station in tent bonus, but I really want "walk it off" perk

 

[Apocal]

I have played 1.6.1 version, I have NPC with MED skill initially 120, now is 200, took 700+ days to level up like that
EXTREMELY slow
OMG

While Medicine does level up pretty slowly, 200 is also pretty damned high.

and I can't choose which skills perks I want
for example, it come with perrk "station" or "walk it off", it choose station in tent bonus, but I really want "walk it off" perk

Yeah, not being able to re-spec at all hurts pretty bad.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Day 366 to get 150 medicine, this is all I do is beat up parties using about 80 trash troops and 80 good troops and sell thier loot, just round and round the Battanian lake all day every day, constant woundeds

 

[noamchomsky]

The removal of the "main level reduces all skill learning" has been a big help for all skills

What is the 'removal of the "main level reduces all skill learning"' please?

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

What is the 'removal of the "main level reduces all skill learning"' please?

In the past versions, many versions ago now, every time your character gained a main level (how you get FP/attributes) the learning speed for ALL skills would drop a little. This ment that gaining a lot of exp/levels from say, damaging enemies in battle a lot, would slow down the rate you learned all skills, even slow passive ones. Also keep in mind there's no way to stop the character from gaining level up exp when they do an action (shoot an enemy, ransom prisoners exct), even with no FP in the skill they still get the raw level up exp. SO this made raising slower skill much slower as you would likely gain many levels from combat/other stuff long before the slower skills got very high. It was a big improvement to remove this.

 

[AngryPanCake]

@Ananda_The_Destroyer
So here, you are talking about Medicine skills for your main character.
How do you improve Companions' Medicine levels?

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

@Ananda_The_Destroyer
So here, you are talking about Medicine skills for your main character.
How do you improve Companions' Medicine levels?

They need to lead a party. The best is to keep them in an army with you and give the mid tier "not special" troops and usee them "not perfectly" so a lot get ko'd each battled. It's a little rough now since you can't manually sperate troops types in a "trash/medicine skill" group. You could also have them be your surgeon in you party, but IMO medicine skill is so slow to raise that you're better of sticking to one surgeon and letting them get every bit of skill you can.
As for getting FP to put on them for medicine, I give them a light X bow unless they have HIGH bow skills, and just let them shoot all battle, does the trick. They don't need any FP or skill to use light xbow and get exp to level up.

 

[AngryPanCake]

@Ananda_The_Destroyer

Thanks for the tips.

 

[noamchomsky]

In the past versions, many versions ago now, every time your character gained a main level (how you get FP/attributes) the learning speed for ALL skills would drop a little.

Thanks very much!!

 

[Nakh]

Medicine definitely too slow to level up through normal gameplay. Even taking hard fights and losing like 50-100 from my 250+ party barely moves the counter. To level it on purpose you need to recruit trash and kill it in hundreds, I guess. I can do it, but it feels unnatural.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Medicine definitely too slow to level up through normal gameplay. Even taking hard fights and losing like 50-100 from my 250+ party barely moves the counter. To level it on purpose you need to recruit trash and kill it in hundreds, I guess. I can do it, but it feels unnatural.

In the hundreds!

More like in the thousands

Edit. Actually, from what I can tell (1.65) it appears you get 10 base xp for each wounded, killed or healed soldier. You need 3,8 mill xp to get to 275. Assuming a learning rate of 10 you should then be able to get there for the bargaining price of a mere 38.000 wounded, killed or healed soldiers.

So, tens of thousands! "but my lord, there is no such army"

 

[vota dc]

Medicine definitely too slow to level up through normal gameplay. Even taking hard fights and losing like 50-100 from my 250+ party barely moves the counter. To level it on purpose you need to recruit trash and kill it in hundreds, I guess. I can do it, but it feels unnatural.

Main source for medicine skills should be troops healing in your party rather than troops first aid during battle. Resting with many wounded troops should give a huge bonus.