I've got some more observations/informations.
Units:
Units in garrisons will choose their career path on their own. It's not decided when lvlup happens but when unit is generated.
It sucks when your 3rd row priest upgrades to a monk
but it can also happen to your enemies
It also sucks if you have monks and your healer upgrades into a witch, giving them -willpower. That's why i avoid garrisoning monks.
However, it's not a big problem to have a witch and a priest in your group as priests don't rely on willpower as much as monks.
I don't know how much time is needed to restock recruits but available recruits change their parameters every six hours (starting from midnight).
It is important when playing with randomized stats turned on. Otherwise it's just the name.
All 6 parameters can change. Penalties and bonuses do not need to be balanced (sry, mr Sawyer). If you're patient/lucky you can recruit some ubermensch.
I once rolled a noble with -1 HP +1 damage and +2 willpower. He made a great paladin.
Stats can be negative but still displayed as 0! It applies to ranged defense and most likely to melee defense as well. To check if this is the case, recruit a unit and give it an item with defense bonus. Negative willpower is displayed as such.
When playing with randomized stats names start to make sense. My +2 willpower guys were nicknamed "God's Will". My infantryman with extra melee def was nicknamed "Two Shields"
Trading:
Prices depend on how rich you are - the richer the worse. Consider not selling loot until you're low on cash (less than 1k).
You can check item's value on inventory screen but you can't when trading. Trading shows selling prices only.
Good selling prices are at 2/3 of items value or higher. Best price i saw was around 75%. In Blood of November selling price can go over 100%.
Some shops pay well for heavy armour but pay crap for light and vice versa. Armours are not a single category. General rule is: shops pay well for item types they sell.
Combat:
Dual wielding units will only attack once if their target has a shield (pavise counts too). IIRC it does not apply when flanking.
Horsemen with shields can't be immune to bows.
Give auto-combat a chance! I was often surprised how well it performed and it saves a lot of time. Those combat animations are slooow.
Units with 2 attack benefit doubly from dmg bonuses and also suffer doubly from penalties. It includes range penalty and Blessed Weapon. Giving Silver Cross to an archer, buffing it with Blessing and surrounding it with other units (so ghosts can't park nearby) is pretty effective. Damage from Blessing is supernatural so it can harm ghosts.
Units that add willpower to attack/defense will actually suffer penalties should their WP become negative. And that's a real possibility when fighting ghosts. Units with Preacher attribute do not get extra willpower Preacher grants. Sry, monks. But paladin ain't no preacher so he does!
XP from combat:
This thing is complex and only a dev can give a good explanation. I'll share some observation, tho.
The biggest factor is theoretical power of your squad vs theoretical power of enemy squad. I say theoretical because a group of 3 powerful units can be facerolling groups of superior number and receive absurd amount of XP. Or a baroness/knight with a shield soloing 4 archers.
Other factor is how many times unit has moved. It is easily observable on units getting extra turns via Gift of Medbh.
Exploits:
Paladin can't equip unholy items like Alchemist Amulet or Ring with Black Agate. But armiger can and those items will remain equipped when he upgrades to a paladin!
Same thing with Witch and holy items like George's amulet.
When unit is mounted it can equip 2H weapon and a shield. It will benefit from both items when horse becomes unavailable, for example during sieges.
Having your unit mounted when attempting a siege will make it lose less HP.
All of this is based on game version 1.101.
The final objective is easily the hardest objective of the game so far. I have to pick two colleagues to go along with me to the next map. I have no idea who's the best to take. I have patiently maxed out most of my posse of nine comrades and each of them has a unique skill I'd like to take forward. The cleric with exorcism & mass power-boost? Oh, yes please. The healer with maxed mass healing? Oh, yes please. The noble who's now also a heavy horseman? Absolutely. The badass archer? God yes. The crossbowman? No reason not to. The heavy infantryman? The dude's been a rock since map 3. Etc. I've spent days thinking about it in preparation for my next session and I still haven't made up my mind.
I'll make it half as hard - take a horseman. Horses are business. In single round a horseman can kill 2 frontline guys and block one ranged unit (if not more). Knight and paladins rule. They're about as rocky as heavy infantryman and more when on horse.
You can take your heavy infantryman as well - 2 solid frontliners can win a lot.
Archer vs crossbowman is a tough choice. There will be some enemies an archer will totally rape (with proper equipment). Crossbowman won't be bad, just not as awesome. OTOH there's a nice xbow you may find. I don't like when cool items occupy my backpack.
There is one side quest in following map where some of your units won't help you. Those units are:
There is another side quest in following map where some of your units won't help you. Those units are:
Still, big kudos.
