Upgrading units

[numdydar]

I know that the feudal troops cannot be upgraded, but how do the others upgrade? Is it automatic or do I need to do something?

Also, I thought destroyed elements would be replaced. I have a merchant ship in a level 13 port with a naval yard with replacements available with just 2 elements (should have 6) for months yet no additional elements have been added? So any ideas on how to get the ship back to full strength.

[loki100]

Most units will upgrade with new techs. You'll see messages such as 'the unit of x regiment have been trained in...'. Depends a wee bit on your game settings, but it happens quickest if you have the units in passive mode on a depot, second best is in a defensive mode and in full supply.

Naval units will repair as you are expecting. It seems (to me) to be a slow, slightly random process. I also think, and this is a guess, you need 8-10 replacement chits spare (or it may just be that this makes it more likely). In this case, its essential to have them in the passive (green) stance.

[Jim-NC]

With certain settings (hard attrition I believe), some units will never upgrade, as they must be on a depot to get upgrades.

Are your ships in passive mode? In my experience, ships that are not in passive mode never get replacements. If they are not, try that and see if they don't start getting new ships.

[sagji]

Units upgrade automatically if you have the replacements. Some settings (IIRC historical attristion) require they be on a depot. Some can't upgrade as you can't have replacements for them.
Merchants (as opposed to transports) might be better in a MTB - IIRC these are tagged as CMN rather than national so work a bit oddly.
The actual number of models in the unit only affects compete chance, supply capacity and "largest merchant fleet" mission, so being short of units isn't usually an issue.

[Jim-NC]

By force pool, you mean replacements? It depends on your attrition level and army size. The other big driver is the techs that upgrade your troops. I personally try to keep at least 2 replacements for each type of unit I have in the field. With that said, with historical attrition, I need more than that for several types of units (I keep 1/10th of my infantry hits, and 1/5th of my supply wagon hits for example. I look at the number of hits above the symbol on the F3 screen to determine). I have a game where I suffer approximately 40-50 hits per turn on infantry units, and thus try to keep 4-5 infantry replacements. I also have 10-15 supply wagon hits per turn, and thus try to keep 2-3 supply wagon replacements.

This is modified by 2 big events:
1. War - if you know you are about to declare war, you should look at buying replacements before hand (see Loki's AAR about why you need replacments - especially what happens to the enemy). Thus you need more replacments for the losses you are about to incur.
2. Certain technologies - the biggest 2 drains on your replacements in the early game are the "Dreyse needle guns" and "rifled muskets" (I think that's how you spell them). Both of these cause a spike in replacements needed. There are also spikes for most of the other upgrades (some are for artillery, some infantry).

[Kensai]

If you have old generation ships that count up in your force pool limits for one of the three size categories (corvette, frigate, battleship), you might need to disband them or force them to battle to be destroyed. They don't need to be annihilated, even elements change. But for a complete new unit you need to lose them.