This issue existed in the first versions, but became more pronounced with the e1.2.0 Beta experience debuff.
My tier 1-2 units can barely be levelled up after most of my party has reached tier 3. At the same time, tier 3+ units level up relatively quickly. Thus, over the normal course of the game, A third of my parties are comprised of underequipped recruits, a half of top-tier veterans, and only a small proportion of middle-tier regular units.
Let me elaborate why this happens. Tier 1 units are useless in combat. Tier 2 only barely less so. For example, at Tier 2 Sturgian bow line does not have bows, while the Vlandian footmen line at Tier 2 does not have shields. The only way to level up these units is to send them to a deadly fight, where they die in droves, as they are poorly equipped. Worse, 1 recruit needs to kill 2 people to progress to tier 2. So if you send them together with the rest of your party, they barely kill anything and barely get any XP - as the rest of your trained and well equipped high tier units do most the killing. Therefore with the current balance, tier 3-4 troops progress faster than tier 1-2 troops.
This situation makes no sense from the historical perspective - even peasant levies will be given some training before being sent into battle. They would at least be given shields. From the gameplay perspective it makes even less sense, as it adds a lot of tedium into the game, to try levelling these troops up.
One can somewhat work around this problem currently, but the following are CRUTCHES, not solutions:
1. Station your elite tier 3+ level troops in a garrison, go hunting bandits with a stack full of tier 1-2 recruits. This is time consuming. This is boring gameplay. You need to own a castle for a garrison. After e.1.2.0 this is even slower as dozens of recruits will die to looters. And it makes no sense. Elite units shouldn't be sitting in garrisons. Levies should be trained in garrisons!
2. IF you don't yet own a castle, send your best tier troops with a companion on a mission, and fight bandits with the rest. You don't need to own a castle for this one, but all the other downsides still apply. Even worse since e1.2.0
3. Assign tier 1-2 units to a separate control group, fight bandits manually, and only send the low-tier group to fight the bandits. Even more tedious, even higher losses, even slower progress.
4. Get the "raise the meek" perk in the leadership tree. This, I imagine is the original solution to the problem. This barely works. You get to this perk very late, as leadership is slow to gain. It only affects troops in your own party, not your other parties or garrisons, and it works VERY SLOWLY. You would maybe upgrade one of recruits every 3 days. Basically it doesn't work.
None of those are really satisfactory, and are just boring/slow workarounds to just get a somewhat competent army. And since units invariably die in combat those need to be performed regularly, making the overall gameplay experience even worse.
There need to be diminishing returns on experience. Tier 5 units should be battle veterans, a level which is hard to get to, requiring a lot of battle experience. Advancing to tier 3 on the other hand, should be trivial. I know this is what developers had in mind, but right now it just doesn't work this way.
I propose the following SOLUTIONS, which can be implemented individually, or in combination:
1. Flat experience for all troops in the party after winning a battle, scaled for every enemy unit killed. This would give relatively more Exp. to low tier troops, and negligible exp. to regular/veteran troops.
2. Garrison training system. An ability to leave say 50 recruits in a garrison, and use town reserve money to have them gain experience up to tier 3. A recruit cant become a veteran by being drilled in a garrison, but he can be taught to shoot a bow / hold a shield.
3. Ability to conduct drills as a party. This would cost time/money, but serve the same purpose as hunting looter stacks did before. As with garrison, troops will get experience up to tier 3 - cannot become a veteran by running drills.
Just fixing/boosting the "raise the meek" perk is NOT a solution. Something as essential as drilling recruits should not be locked behind a perk.
My tier 1-2 units can barely be levelled up after most of my party has reached tier 3. At the same time, tier 3+ units level up relatively quickly. Thus, over the normal course of the game, A third of my parties are comprised of underequipped recruits, a half of top-tier veterans, and only a small proportion of middle-tier regular units.
Let me elaborate why this happens. Tier 1 units are useless in combat. Tier 2 only barely less so. For example, at Tier 2 Sturgian bow line does not have bows, while the Vlandian footmen line at Tier 2 does not have shields. The only way to level up these units is to send them to a deadly fight, where they die in droves, as they are poorly equipped. Worse, 1 recruit needs to kill 2 people to progress to tier 2. So if you send them together with the rest of your party, they barely kill anything and barely get any XP - as the rest of your trained and well equipped high tier units do most the killing. Therefore with the current balance, tier 3-4 troops progress faster than tier 1-2 troops.
This situation makes no sense from the historical perspective - even peasant levies will be given some training before being sent into battle. They would at least be given shields. From the gameplay perspective it makes even less sense, as it adds a lot of tedium into the game, to try levelling these troops up.
One can somewhat work around this problem currently, but the following are CRUTCHES, not solutions:
1. Station your elite tier 3+ level troops in a garrison, go hunting bandits with a stack full of tier 1-2 recruits. This is time consuming. This is boring gameplay. You need to own a castle for a garrison. After e.1.2.0 this is even slower as dozens of recruits will die to looters. And it makes no sense. Elite units shouldn't be sitting in garrisons. Levies should be trained in garrisons!
2. IF you don't yet own a castle, send your best tier troops with a companion on a mission, and fight bandits with the rest. You don't need to own a castle for this one, but all the other downsides still apply. Even worse since e1.2.0
3. Assign tier 1-2 units to a separate control group, fight bandits manually, and only send the low-tier group to fight the bandits. Even more tedious, even higher losses, even slower progress.
4. Get the "raise the meek" perk in the leadership tree. This, I imagine is the original solution to the problem. This barely works. You get to this perk very late, as leadership is slow to gain. It only affects troops in your own party, not your other parties or garrisons, and it works VERY SLOWLY. You would maybe upgrade one of recruits every 3 days. Basically it doesn't work.
None of those are really satisfactory, and are just boring/slow workarounds to just get a somewhat competent army. And since units invariably die in combat those need to be performed regularly, making the overall gameplay experience even worse.
There need to be diminishing returns on experience. Tier 5 units should be battle veterans, a level which is hard to get to, requiring a lot of battle experience. Advancing to tier 3 on the other hand, should be trivial. I know this is what developers had in mind, but right now it just doesn't work this way.
I propose the following SOLUTIONS, which can be implemented individually, or in combination:
1. Flat experience for all troops in the party after winning a battle, scaled for every enemy unit killed. This would give relatively more Exp. to low tier troops, and negligible exp. to regular/veteran troops.
2. Garrison training system. An ability to leave say 50 recruits in a garrison, and use town reserve money to have them gain experience up to tier 3. A recruit cant become a veteran by being drilled in a garrison, but he can be taught to shoot a bow / hold a shield.
3. Ability to conduct drills as a party. This would cost time/money, but serve the same purpose as hunting looter stacks did before. As with garrison, troops will get experience up to tier 3 - cannot become a veteran by running drills.
Just fixing/boosting the "raise the meek" perk is NOT a solution. Something as essential as drilling recruits should not be locked behind a perk.
