Is the rate at which soldiers gain experience slower in Warband?

[MercuryFMJ]

Or do I just suck at this game? My soldiers die almost as often as they upgrade, even when I rape the enemy army I suffer two or three deaths and a similar number of upgrades. I have to sit around a sea raider hideout and grind/recruit/grind etc. for hours to get a decent army, and I don't remember older versions being so monotonous. So what I ask is there any way to change this experience rate?

 

[StinkyMcGirk]

The more companions the better - I think you can pretty reasonably recruit ten companions if you take a look at the companion guide on the mount and blade wiki.  Give them at least 4 training each.

Better yet, as a player max out your surgery skill as much as possible.  If you put surgery on a companion instead of yourself, you risk having that companion die and then having no access to the skill.

Those are the two things that contribute hugely to quickly turning a few recruits into top-tier troops, and not losing large amounts of men on the field.

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Alternatively, you can lower the difficulty

 

[looy]

^ What he said, get a high surgery skill. I have it on Marnid who just stays at the back the entire fight, at lvl 4 I almost never suffer any permanant loses. Training also helps a bit, but you need to be higher level than the troops you are training, so you can't pump out knights until your at about lvl 25 (and even then they take lots of exp).

I'm not sure, but are the default difficulty settings diffrent in Warband? I vaguly remember Damage to Troops being set to Normal instead of 1/2.