unit exp

[Payn]

all in all i really like this game
but what really bothers me is the units exp gain.
i believe its only possible to gain exp by fighting with the units and get a small exp boost by some buildings. but this boost is barely enough to get lvl 2.
i really hate it fighting 30 battles to get your units strong just to run into some centaur archer or dwarf balistas which kill all your healers and ranged units and after that start again with a lvl 1 healer.
wouldn't it better to let units in ur capital gain little exp every turn.
so you can use ur gold to buy more units and lvl them up that when you need to replace lost units they have a decent lvl.
atm i always have only one cheap unit in my castle just to trigger the siege and not lose instantly.

[Crim]

I think changing one of the unit exp buildings to instead give a small amount of exp income to garrisoned units is a really good idea

[...]

I think the problem is more about the ranged or other weaker units. I don't really like using any ranged units if I don't need magic dmg. They just die too easily and you can fill the ranged role with your hero. Melee units are easier to keep alive and leveling up a couple new ones is not that hard. I find horse archers the best ranged because they are a littel tougher and can move to safety easily.

[vladimir.velit]

After Lvl 8 - 9 your fighter hero can fight battles solo and has no need in ranged units. You can transfer those units to some other low level hero. And remember: centaures and harpies - are best trainers fo fighter of 8 - 9 lvl. Fighter gains extra level quite easily after dealt with these creatures solo.

[Karol13]

It is actually about variability - variability of your armies. Basically not having one hero and hoping he will win any battles. Even warrior level 30, with artefacts giving life steal, regeneration, first strike, poiso imunity (very useful for HtH battles) or tireless... even such hero can lose against army of 3+ dragons or in arena where the enemy is also 30lvl warrior, but with phoenix, ballistas, troll...

Great Commander lvl 30 with army of 10 crossbowmen on level 18~20 can beat most armies without loss, but not army with 2 or more ghosts. Unless he will hire magic shooters. Also this same commander would lose against a dragon (not even if there are more dragons) ... while a scout with good bow/crossbow and sme nice infantry (meat shield) can shoot those flying basterds down.

Warrior with cool artefacts on level 20 can fight off most armies, but try him against 8 giant slugs.

Mage with ghosts and vampires is hard to beat and you may feel he can win any battle, but try him against golems + phoenix (or dragons)

Then of course come to calculations variables like difficulty, enemy level, enemy combination (especially funny in arena fights). You could get used to dragon with less than 100 HP, but try higher difficulty and you will wonder!

Especially tricky is combo of phoenix (sometimes 2) with griffons backed up with some medium infantry and casters (worse is when the casters can cast ressurection... that will make you have killed one and the same phoenix not twice, but one more time for each spell caster.. and due good AI, they will resurrect phoenix, not any minor unit.. they are not dumb, you know)

But back to topic: units get less XP when auto-combat is selected (quick combat especially) ... You may notice, that units who shoot/kill a lot in manual fights get levels faster. But yep, they will never get XP fast enough. I myself have seen it just too often, when my army of 20+ leveled fighters (mostly I get so high with crossbowmen or ballistas) was smashed just due wrong decision.
Would I welcome the option having my garrisoned units to receive extra XP per each turn?
Well, maybe if it won't be by default... so only few garrison slots would be "active" for training.
Then yes.
2 slots on level 1, 1 slot on level 2 & 3 and no slot on level 4 (that would be overpowered)

But there is still a workaround: after you learn what enemy falls best agains what kind of your hero/army, keep 2 the most used active and watch whom you attack. Any combination is good, to just win a shard. (you don't need to win each battle)
here it is also good to look around what resources you have, if rich of metal, wood, or dragonroot, red crystals... that will give you a hint of going towards mages or warriors.

Warrior & Scout heroes are low profiles on costs (they only keep spending your $ on repairs)
Commander needs a lot $ for keeping army upkeeped.
Mage consumes a lot of crystals.
So it's best to combine one low-profile and one expensive.
At the first 10-14 shards of campaign, commander + scout can do.
Later, when fighting against more enemies and larger shards its good to change to:
mage + warrior (here your success will depend on the artefacts you will be able to collect for your warrior)
but also
mage + scout can do (but here you don't want to fight battles against 11 golems on level 20, or 3 or more dragons... )

If you are lucky, your neighboring provinces will have max 1 dragon (as strongest enemy) ... in that case your mage will fight the weaker armies and grind zombies and level up... in the same time build the best mage schools with best spells (for long you can go on just with raise zombie and rain of rocks... but that may not be enough when the battles will start to heat up)
The one dragon, that would kill your 20lvl mage with 8 zombies on level 15... can be shot down by your scout... who can get a cool bow very early in the game. (+15 or more damage... is possible to get in first 10 battles with some luck)

Actually don't get sad, when you will realize that it is nearly impossible to kill any enemy on each shard. Don't forget that your focus is to seige and capture enemy's castles, not clear all neutral armies. It is a strategy, not genocide simulator. Choose your battles wisely and become just so strong to win against AI players.

After you get access to tier 3 or 4 units, you can try to win against the hardest enemies ... but I have not found a army, that would win all possible battles.

In average, when I try really hard and choose battles really wisely, I have my units on level 8.. that's the level when they meet their destiny and I need to "recycle" them. Once my slinger survived the whole game, got to level 26 or maybe higher... once. Or when I first created army of zombies on level 20... and felt like having unbeatable army... it took only 10-15 turns till I met an enemy that kicked my lass.

[f16weapons]

That's good advice--I like how this deviates from some other strategy games where you can just dominate the neutral world willy-nilly in preparation for steamrolling your enemy. It makes every decision seem more important. Then again, sometimes it's nice to be able to just be a juggernaut of death.

[zaitsev_vk]

I don't think that the advice to have only a fighter as a hero, or not have to use the healers/archers at all is a great value. Thanks, of course. Yes, I agree, that the use of few heroes is the right decision.

But in any case, I think it would be great if we could to resurrect favorite fighters (by a special ritual, for example). In the meantime, we can save them only through the resurrection spell.