VETERANCY/EXPERIENCE
Units improving through combat survival — the squad that levels from battles fought, veterancy ranks earned by kills, experience that makes the surviving soldier measurably better than the recruit.
- SOLO-DEV COST LOW
- TIMING REAL-TIME / TURN
- COMMON IN TACTICS · RTS · STRATEGY · WARGAME
RTS tradition runs veterancy as chevrons (Company of Heroes' squads gaining accuracy and abilities through engagements — the veteran squad as accumulating asset; Advance Wars' unit ranks), tactics campaigns make it the roster's spine (XCOM soldiers climbing from rookie to colonel is the genre's central attachment engine; Fire Emblem's leveling permanence), and strategy layers track army experience (Total War's unit chevrons, Hearts of Iron divisions training toward elite). Designers award experience for survival because it converts units from expendable to invested: an interchangeable rifleman is spent freely, but a three-battle veteran is capital — losing him costs accumulated value no reinforcement replaces — so veterancy automatically generates the preservation instinct that gives combat stakes (retreating the wounded veteran squad is rational, and the rationality is the emotion), creates asymmetric asset warfare (targeting enemy veterans, protecting yours — experience makes units unequal, and unequal units make targeting decisions rich), and threads campaign continuity through tactical play: the roster's rank distribution is the war's autobiography. Veterancy also embodies a design honesty: skill should accrue to the exposed — the unit that fought earned what the reserve didn't — which makes the experience economy self-narrating (your elites are elite because of specific battles both of you remember). The death-of-investment problem defines the mechanic's difficulty tuning: permadeath plus veterancy is maximum stakes (XCOM's whole psychology), while respawning veterancy (RTS squads reinforcing without full loss) softens it into an attrition resource. Key decisions: what improves with rank (flat stats, new abilities, or behavior — ability-granting ranks make veterans qualitatively different, not just numerically), experience sources (kills favor aggression and kill-stealing dynamics; surviving engagements favors participation; objectives favor doctrine), rank visibility to both sides (visible enemy veterancy enables targeting strategy), and replacement economics — how fast the pipeline produces new veterans determines whether losses are tragedies or turnover. Pitfall: veterancy snowball — experience systems reward the winner's units with the power to keep winning, compounding tactical advantage into strategic inevitability; without counterweights (veteran upkeep, capped ranks, experience for the defeated side's survivors), the mechanic that creates attachment also quietly decides campaigns in their first battles.