That is true, although as you say it's not necessarily a good reason. I wouldn't mind for example if militia in the settlements couldn't promote naturally for auto-resolve reasons, but the player and AI parties not being able to upgrade them feels stupid.
Can't we straight up hire caravan guards from taverns? My game is heavily modded so I can't check, but I vaguely remember being able to hire armed traders & caravan guards in vanilla.
Caravan guards, yes. Militia, I don't think so.
Maybe we should be able to upgrade base militia in our party into standard troops or maybe mercenaries
Well militia spawns are fixed, so that sort of make sense. You only get significant # of veteran militia in Towns/Castles that are doing well. Though it would be nice if Towns/Castles that were undisturbed effectively had better militia from them upgrading too. Militia units are all pretty bad, veterans are okay, but not particularly good for T4. I get rid of them soon as I can, only keep them if my party happens to be very diminished.
Shouldn't it be the opposite? The militia that have seen combat should technically be better at it, not that it really matters since as you've said, militia are pretty bad.
Caravan guards and veteran caravan guards, which are all mounted, are basically normal tier 4 & 5 units. From what I remember the Aserai vet caravan guard has exactly the same equipment and stats as the Mamluke heavy horse archers and the Empire one is mounted crossbowman. It's also possible that the Battanian caravan guards may be better than their regular t5 horsemen which are hot trash.
This is very interesting, could you elaborate on why having more than 1 caravan makes them more likely to be destroyed? Also, I might be misunderstanding what you're saying here but caravan guards can be recruited from taverns just like regular mercenaries without having a caravan (tho I don't remember if they're as expensive as a mercenary or if they benefit from merc cost reduction perks).
That's actually good to hear, since that means being able to upgrade militia won't impact siege auto-resolve and map balance. Not that I was actually planning to use any militia in my party regardless if I could promote them, it is just a little annoying I can't upgrade militia.
I'm 100% sure that there is an existing way to get to parties to not upgrade because bandits used to upgrade over time. It made Aserai deserts and Khuzait steppes ****ing horrible with banditry.
Maybe... but I can't help but then question the **** that goes on in my own modding. With a party template consisting of one top tier bandit, I end up seeing gangs with a few too many...
I don't think that bandits necessarily respect the party templates they are given; it seems like they (slowly) just generate more.
Well considering they kind of follow their own rules (no more than 3 types of troops, etc), that pretty much makes sense.
