Originally Posted by
Sheister
that is true, the soldiers did help with the desertions, but every dwarf core I fought then had the problem of still being very open every time they had to send out (as they naturally preserved their elites first) and things just kept getting worse for them. I found it very simple to force them into a lower tier NW group and let them stagnate there being outgained by orcs that had been chained. Four chained orcs easily controlled 8 chained dwarves.
I can't comment on differences of play. I only fought BiO and some other KDs ranked in the 20's and 10's. But overall, yeah, the soldier desertion preservation was in some ways "helpful". OTOH, I wonder if in some ways it would, by retention of NW hurt the "lazy wave style" of many war KDs where there are more late wavers than in the KD's that BiO, BB, et al usually war. The retention of NW helps later gaining provinces (probably not enough to worry about is my guess).