[LEGACY] Quick Questions // Quick Answers

How do i become a mercenary? I keep only getting offered to join factions instead of being hired by them.

Did they remove the option to import and export companion characters? I thought I would see the option in the camp menu ------>> action , but there is none there. Is it somewhere else or was it removed ?

I started my kingdom of pendor just recently and could use the aid of some powerful lords.
I'm at peace with my former king Ulric -which is good- and started a war with the Empire to replace it.

On a sidenote, i also tried to replace Sarleon and prisoner-recruited most lords real quick, but when i had nearly all Sarleon territory + lords after just 2 weeks i reloaded an older savegame before doing that, because it was too perfect and i descided to preserve Sarleon this time and feed from Empire assets. 
btw i like to share my knowledge, that the chances for recruited lords to bring their fiefs with them increases with good relationship. Most of my former colleagues were 100 with me and brought their fiefs no problem -> it was just too "easy", and it really pays off to grind relationship before recruitment.

However i'm not a friend of turning companions into vassals, as you lose assets for low return-value.
But Boadice would be a nice lord due to her backround-story + exotic troops. I already tested (she is unleveled) and was pleasantly surprised see her whooping 1000 renown! I expected much less. I would give her Avendor + 3 villages.

But now i'm concerned about 2 things:
- Boadice is martial, which is good. But some guys stated that she doesn't answer the marshals call and has problems following orders. Isn't it more a relationship-thingy?
- What about NPC army size limitations? I know it depends on income, but castles give an additional bonus (+20?). What is best, cities or castles for vassals?

Is it possible to disable whatever script makes it so your archers only have a few arrows in the event of a sally? If not, is it possible to just disable sallies outright?

Ishwoo said:

How do i become a mercenary? I keep only getting offered to join factions instead of being hired by them.

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I think you just need to wait for some time. Ask tavern keepers, sooner or later some king looking for mercs will pop up.

skullmasher
I believe all the ex-companions have 1000 renown.
As for Boadice's behavior...in general, lords' behavior looks like random to me. In one of my games, Alistair was an excellent marshal and a very loyal lord always coming to assist me in times of me being a marshal; in my last game he ignored all my calls despite having a large army. My relationship with him was the same in both games. In one of my games, Boadice was a great helper, in my last game she was extremely stupid, lazy and irresponsible. Relationship's the same as well. So you might as well just give it a try: make her a marshal for some time and see how well she does her job. You can always replace her with no penalty.

Mythos said:

Is it possible to disable whatever script makes it so your archers only have a few arrows in the event of a sally? If not, is it possible to just disable sallies outright?

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No.
Yes - bring sufficient troops and a healthy mix of infantry and archers.
Sallies are a great way to reduce a large chunk of the enemy pretty easily.

Ishwoo said:

How do i become a mercenary? I keep only getting offered to join factions instead of being hired by them.

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The first lord of a faction at war with another whom you encounter will offer you a mercenary contract if you ask him for a quest.

cascinova said:

Did they remove the option to import and export companion characters? I thought I would see the option in the camp menu ------>> action , but there is none there. Is it somewhere else or was it removed ?

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It´s under character -> statistics -> export
Then you start a new game and name the char the same as the old, go to character -> statistics -> import and voila - money, lvl and stats are the same as with your old one.

Keep in mind though that PoP scales certain parties to the players level - bandit spawns, for example, or the amount of opponents in a hideout, making some of them almost impossible to survive.

Fairly sure you could disable the ''ranged troops have little to ammo'' script, just gotta find it and then run a few tests.

cascinova said:

Did they remove the option to import and export companion characters? I thought I would see the option in the camp menu ------>> action , but there is none there. Is it somewhere else or was it removed ?

Click to expand...

Exporting npcs is not a native feature. Some other mods add it but it has never been a part of PoP.

noosers said:

Untick Force Single Thread in the starting option. That should cure the stutter. Never tried it myself but some people claim it´s the proper cure.

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I went to try this and the option is already un-checked. Anyone else have a solution?

It´s under character -> statistics -> export
Then you start a new game and name the char the same as the old, go to character -> statistics -> import and voila - money, lvl and stats are the same as with your old one.

Keep in mind though that PoP scales certain parties to the players level - bandit spawns, for example, or the amount of opponents in a hideout, making some of them almost impossible to survive.

Click to expand...

I mean for companions though, not for the player.  Like in other games (mods) I could import and export the companions.

Edit: Ok i see the answer now, thank you. I guess I was thinking of other mods.

reticentReciter said:

Dalloskid said:

noosers said:

@Dalloskid:
Go mercenary for the Empire to keep the balance, slightly tipping the scales in favour of the faction you like most, thus gaining valuable relations with the various lords, lots of loot and reknown and enough army size to finally start your own kingdom.

Just keep in mind to groom half a dozen or so villages in a handy recruting circle to decent relations as well. Save up 200k gc (I started with 100k and it was dwindling too fast) then go independent if the political situation is promising.

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I always take advantage of a situation that I can't really hold onto, like an easy castle that I can't hold.
Basically, my biggest issue is getting to the stage where I have decent money and a walled fief to start a CKO. Thats all I want, after I get that I'm happy to just chill under the rule of any monarch.

I actually went really far in this game - good relations with the Empire and I even got married (first time!). I have to say, that cutscene that gets played is hilarious, albeit unintentional.

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Getting a walled fief for keeps is pretty easy. Consider befriending a siege-friendly order (Knights of Eventide are alright and available from the start, alternatively you'll have to found Knights of the Falcon, who are a bit better or Knights of the Ebony Gauntlet, who are amazing, but cost a qualis gem). This will give you access to the "challenging task" quest, which gives you control of a hundred or so order troops. With that kind of force you can easily take a weak to medium defended castle that doesn't have a horrible layout. Make sure you have decent surgery and engineer skills and cheese away, whittling down defenders with your order archers and retreating. After a few attacks the defenders will catch on and sally out, but order archers are also competent in melee, so it's no big deal.

Once you take the fief, dispatch an emissary to some monarch asking for protection and hire a mercenary company to man the walls for the few days it takes to get an answer. Ideally the faction you've just taken the fief from is neck-deep in war and the faction you're joining isn't. At this point you can cancel the order quest if you want and focus on garrisoning as many troops as you can. Prisoner trains, friendly villages, knocked out bandits from guildmaster quests, anybody you can get your hands on.

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How did you manage to start an order before you had a fief?
I've only ever managed to gather 1 knight and ~8 sergeants from a bounty quest, the other times I've gotten nothing. I'm struggling to see how you would gain a significant force this way.

At the moment, the quickest way I can see is purchasing Noldor, either from Quigfen or the hidden way. I've never used Noldor much before (at least not for an extended time) so I might do this instead of maxing stats like I always do. Would probably be more fun.

oldark said:

noosers said:

Untick Force Single Thread in the starting option. That should cure the stutter. Never tried it myself but some people claim it´s the proper cure.

Click to expand...

I went to try this and the option is already un-checked. Anyone else have a solution?

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Try it with the option activated.

Dalloskid said:

reticentReciter said:

Dalloskid said:

noosers said:

@Dalloskid:
Go mercenary for the Empire to keep the balance, slightly tipping the scales in favour of the faction you like most, thus gaining valuable relations with the various lords, lots of loot and reknown and enough army size to finally start your own kingdom.

Just keep in mind to groom half a dozen or so villages in a handy recruting circle to decent relations as well. Save up 200k gc (I started with 100k and it was dwindling too fast) then go independent if the political situation is promising.

Click to expand...

I always take advantage of a situation that I can't really hold onto, like an easy castle that I can't hold.
Basically, my biggest issue is getting to the stage where I have decent money and a walled fief to start a CKO. Thats all I want, after I get that I'm happy to just chill under the rule of any monarch.

I actually went really far in this game - good relations with the Empire and I even got married (first time!). I have to say, that cutscene that gets played is hilarious, albeit unintentional.

Click to expand...

Getting a walled fief for keeps is pretty easy. Consider befriending a siege-friendly order (Knights of Eventide are alright and available from the start, alternatively you'll have to found Knights of the Falcon, who are a bit better or Knights of the Ebony Gauntlet, who are amazing, but cost a qualis gem). This will give you access to the "challenging task" quest, which gives you control of a hundred or so order troops. With that kind of force you can easily take a weak to medium defended castle that doesn't have a horrible layout. Make sure you have decent surgery and engineer skills and cheese away, whittling down defenders with your order archers and retreating. After a few attacks the defenders will catch on and sally out, but order archers are also competent in melee, so it's no big deal.

Once you take the fief, dispatch an emissary to some monarch asking for protection and hire a mercenary company to man the walls for the few days it takes to get an answer. Ideally the faction you've just taken the fief from is neck-deep in war and the faction you're joining isn't. At this point you can cancel the order quest if you want and focus on garrisoning as many troops as you can. Prisoner trains, friendly villages, knocked out bandits from guildmaster quests, anybody you can get your hands on.

Click to expand...

How did you manage to start an order before you had a fief?
I've only ever managed to gather 1 knight and ~8 sergeants from a bounty quest, the other times I've gotten nothing. I'm struggling to see how you would gain a significant force this way.

At the moment, the quickest way I can see is purchasing Noldor, either from Quigfen or the hidden way. I've never used Noldor much before (at least not for an extended time) so I might do this instead of maxing stats like I always do. Would probably be more fun.

Click to expand...

Try getting your relation with an order to 30

As for founding Knights of the Falcon, the game presents opportunities to take a weakly defended fief pretty often, so if you read a notification about a city getting sacked by an army or see a weakly garrisoned fief, you just go for it and found the order. Doesn't matter if the fief is recaptured right away, the order chapter will be there and once your relations are at 30, you'll be able to take advantage of "challenging tasks".

Never really thought about it like that. Thats actually a really good idea. I'll have a go at getting order relations to 30 with an already established Order, but I'll keep that in mind. Cheers!

I took Kyros Dux hostage and talked to him, but there was no option to recruit him, despite having 22 relation with him.

He's a powerful lord with Shadow Legion Centurions + >1000 renown, so i want him badly. Why doesn't he give me the option? His only fief is a former dshar village, but property shouldn't matter anyways. His relationship with Imperator is good, so i guess some high value lords with household troops have a higher relationship-threshold than others?

check this discussion for more info about recruitment: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=81711.0

According to this i need only 7 relationship for hostage lords to change sides, and i have 22. Still he won't join 

skullmasher said:

I took Kyros Dux hostage [...]
i want him badly. Why doesn't he give me the option? [...]

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To recruit a lord you need a relation with him higher than the following number:

15 + campaign difficulty (0 easy, 5 normal, 10 hard) + number of total centers (1 for castle or village, 2 for town) that the faction your recruited lord belongs to owns – your persuasion skill - number of total centers (1 for castle or village, 2 for town) that YOUR faction owns.

On top of this, there might be some added difficulty depending if the possible recruit is a “duke” (or dux, or one of the top lords of each faction) or not.

http://pop3.wikia.com/wiki/Habitual_gameplay_questions

How do I know how much XP a certain unit type needs before it can upgrade? And since it's a single unit type but I might have multiple units of that unit type how does the XP get shared then? And if I have 2 and one of them dies what happens to the XP?

Another question, I want a doomguides so i need to capture seer favorites and seer initiates, of course my 128 warband can't take on a 1k strong seer army, I heard that the seer army spawn smaller scouting bands that has seer favorites and initiates that I can capture easily, so I'll try to get my doomguide materials from there, but when do they spawn exactly and how do they behave? Do they move around near the seers army or something or venture all over the map?

They move around the 3 Seers army. Chasing stuff if their friends are in range, running from it if they are out of sight.
Pretty much like any other smaller warband behaves. Just keep an eye open and once one popped, go after it.
And judge your distance.

telume said:

How do I know how much XP a certain unit type needs before it can upgrade? And since it's a single unit type but I might have multiple units of that unit type how does the XP get shared then? And if I have 2 and one of them dies what happens to the XP?

Another question, I want a doomguides so i need to capture seer favorites and seer initiates, of course my 128 warband can't take on a 1k strong seer army, I heard that the seer army spawn smaller scouting bands that has seer favorites and initiates that I can capture easily, so I'll try to get my doomguide materials from there, but when do they spawn exactly and how do they behave? Do they move around near the seers army or something or venture all over the map?

Click to expand...

How do I know how much XP a certain unit type needs before it can upgrade?
Trial and error mostly. If you have multiple companions with trainer skill, take a note of how many days it takes for a full stack of units to completely upgrade to the next tier. Multiply the number of days by daily experience gain, divide by the number of units in the stack and you'll get a pretty close estimate of how much experience the individual unit takes.

And since it's a single unit type but I might have multiple units of that unit type how does the XP get shared then?
If an individual unit takes, say 500 xp to upgrade, then a stack of 10 such units will take 5000 total xp. If the stack gets 2500 xp after a large battle, 5 of the units in the stack will be eligible for upgrade.

And if I have 2 and one of them dies what happens to the XP?
Now, I'm not entirely certain on this, but I believe that units upgrade from the bottom of the stack and die from the top. I don't think you lose any upgrade-ready units until they're the only ones left.

Another question, I want a doomguides so i need to capture seer favorites and seer initiates, of course my 128 warband can't take on a 1k strong seer army, I heard that the seer army spawn smaller scouting bands that has seer favorites and initiates that I can capture easily, so I'll try to get my doomguide materials from there, but when do they spawn exactly and how do they behave? Do they move around near the seers army or something or venture all over the map?

Seer army spawns in the same area every time, I think. Pay attention to rumors about them and you'll be able to determine where pretty well 

As for seer patrols, they spawn every N days, something like 1 a week, though probably a bit more often. I never bothered to determine how many days exactly, or if there's any variance, but I've my share of patrol hunting (though mostly Wolfbode, Eyegrim and Dread Legion). Once a patrol spawns, it roams around the army itself, engaging merchant caravans or even lords if their mother army is near.

A word of caution, Seer army spawns in a high traffic area, and doesn't last as long as some other armies because of it. Consider kiting them somewhere safer!

^Too late lol, I left the area around Avendor where the army was to take part in Elacrai's tournament and when I got back I couldn't find them so I checked the victory condition and it didn't list them as one of the active armeis so they must've been obliterated, can they spawn again? And where is a good place to kite them to keep them safe?