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This is just a random idea I got from the Counter System topic of Fargledum at RTSC...

An important part of what makes a soldier effective lies in his training. Just showing someone which end of a sword to hold doesn't really help him against a well trained swordman.

Now, I was wondering about this: Could we make training time more dynamic?

Sometimes you just need a large force to spread around your base quickly, at other times you need capable units to defend a narrow pass.
Of course, there are already things like standard swordmen and elite swordmen. The idea that I had was to keep these as a difference in equipment and minimum required trainingstime.

My ideal would be to have their statistics directly related to the exact time they spend in training. Each unit would have a minimum and maximum trainingstime, as well as min and max stats. The longer you let the units train beyond the minimum required time, the more skilled they would be. Naturally, the trainingstime would be set once and not determened for every unit trained. Also, once minimum trainingstime would be passed, further training could be manually aborted at any time.

In my oppinion, it would be even better if there would be some random element in the skill of individual units. Very limited naturally, since inherent stronger soldiers would more likely have been selected for elite training, but still...

Anyway, I don't think that would be possible, or perhaps possible, but not really to the liking of the rest of you. So, to be more realistic, I think limiting this to longer training = experience level 2 or perhaps 3 at creation would be possible. Experience level 3 would only be reachable if the barracks would be upgraded to have additional sergeants or better training fields/equipment. And like with most things, the whole thing would differ with the factions.

Another related idea I had was to allow standard sword units with say experience level 5 return to the barracks to get better equipement (and training to use them)  in exchange for some resources and perhaps the cost of 1 level. They would effectively be upgraded to level 4 elite swordsmen units, under the condition that the faction has such a unit type.

Solinx

Edit: NOTE: I didn't check on the level system Darvin posted about a while back. The details can be worked out later.

Anyway, I don't think that would be possible, or perhaps possible, but not really to the liking of the rest of you. So, to be more realistic, I think limiting this to longer training = experience level 2 or perhaps 3 at creation would be possible. Experience level 3 would only be reachable if the barracks would be upgraded to have additional sergeants or better training fields/equipment. And like with most things, the whole thing would differ with the factions.

yes, that's a nice idea. realistic, but not too complex for the average player

Random unit stats has a big problem: if it's not noticeable, then it's pointless.  If it is noticeable, then it's unfair.

As for unit training, I have one big issue here.  That issue is that fundamentally sending units away from your base to attack or gain map control is riskier than building up, and needs to have incentives to keep the game from stagnating.  Training is counterproductive to this as you've implemented it, and we should be mindful of that fact.

As it is currently:
Conceptually, Caeluin and Balkurn have a professional army; their units have all been given proper and complete training, as well as the best military equipment available (they don't have "tiers" of units).  Nisyrra's soldiers are all well over a hundred years old; even a few extra months of training time is meaningless.  Tharwain already has peasant drafts versus properly trained units, and Varnost's units aren't trained at all; the high level warriors have their rank because they're survivors.  I think the unit graduation would work well for Varnost, but otherwise I don't think this training idea is well suited to the game mechanics.

hmm yes, on second though, while your idea is good in general(Solinx), it's not really necessary for our factions