Lilun Haisha (Zangi) and I (Sarden Thelassan) have opened the training tourney with a bit of bloodshed.
Re: setting to militia and burying the dead, how exactly does that work?
Be sure to RP each player's actions in accordance with whatever happened in battle!
My usual technique is to RP each battle "stage", ie, ranged 1, then 2 (if any archers, otherwise skip), then melee 1, melee 2, etc etc etc. If someone retreats, or is wounded, RP that too.
Doesn't need to be a paragraph each like I do
A sentence would suffice.
As for that, click "Soldiers" on the right.
You'll get soldier names, xp level, a drop-down menu box, and all the equipment, where they're from, and then their log since their initial recruitment - which is very fun to read for the higher xp soldiers!
If you want to select a certain group of troops, you can set all sorts of lettered categories, or set your own custom ones. Or, the long way as I always do, just check each troop's box manually, put "selection" in the "all soldiers in group" box, click "apply to group" to set your mobilize/retrain/set as militia/disband orders for each of the checked soldiers, and then "issue your orders" with the bottom button.
Retrain lets you add different weapons, armor, and secondary items to your troops. For example, one of my void characters is capturing an independent settlement right now. The region manufactures maces, a much higher quality weapon than our spears. It also produces shields and leather armor, which shits on my cloth armor. As such, I've set most of my troops to retrain, making sure to manually select one and click "retrain" in the action box, so that the little blue command prompt shows up at the bottom. I then selected mace, leather armor, and shield, made sure all my troops to be trained are selected, hit apply to group, verified they're selected in-case I double-applied and thus UN-applied (useful trick once you learn how to use it without pissing yourself off), and issued orders. Now, in a few days' time, they'll be vastly more powerful! Typically you want to do this with higher-xp characters, as they are less likely to just drop their gear and run - which can be quite frustrating when you're brand new heavy cavalry walk home barefoot and unarmed, throwing away the expensive, difficult to manufacture items you spent so long producing for them - whereas a higher-xp unit will likely fight to the death, taking as many fuckers out with him as humanly possible. Also, xp directly influences how strong a soldier is, so your 10 xp medium infantry does much less damage and takes less of a beating than your 55 xp medium infantry. (20+ xp is good, though 40+ is great. I have some 70+ xp guys that are incredible.) You want your high-xp soldiers to have the BEST weapons, armor, and gear you can supply.
That brings me to resupply. Sometimes your soldiers' great will be greyed out. This means it was either damaged beyond repair or lost during battle, and thus does not exist - and gives no bonus - to your troop. Designate them and "resupply" in an estate that has those items and allows you to resupply, and you'll regain the full power of your troops. If you can't do so at the moment, consider putting the troop somewhere safe. It'd kill me to lose a high-xp heavy cavalry in a small battle because the idiot is charging around with no weapon. Its happened before...
There will be a button at the bottom that says "bury all dead" when you have dead but aren't moving or in combat, click that and then issue your orders with the bottom-most button.
If you wish to set as militia, select them as you would any, set as militia, issue orders, and the selected troops will become militia - defending an estate and using their off hours to help produce food and material for your estate! There *IS* a cutoff, though, where militia consume more than they produce. Typically you want 100 militia in your estates. Any more and their productivity starts to drop off.
ALSO, when you're within any given region, all your troops eat from their food production. This can and will cause starvation, which can cripple allies or assist in defeating your enemies.