What Companion Combinations Do You Use?

[jarlaxle1985]

Just curious what are the different combinations people use, and why. I understand that you should get as many companions as you can maintain since at the end-game, a companion will be better than a regular soldier. What's stopping you is that companions have likes and dislikes for other companions, therefore making a sustainable combination much like solving a jigsaw puzzle.

As a reminder, the rules of the jigsaw puzzle are:
Each companion likes one other companion and dislikes 2 other companions. If X companion is in the same party as 1 disliked companion, X will get upset. To balance this out, you need to have the liked companion also in the party. Since there's only one liked companion for every companion, you can't balance out X if you've got both his/her disliked companions in the party.

For reference, here's the link to the full companion list of 22 for Floris: http://floris.wikia.com/wiki/Companions

My current best is 12 companions:

• Borcha
• Ymira
• Rolf
• Matheld
• Alayen
• Bunduk
• Katrin
• Nizar
• Artimenner
• Nadia
• Sajjad
• Edwyn

I don't have 10:

• Marnid
• Baheshtur*
• Firentis
• Deshavi
• Jeremus
• Lezalit
• Kelthi
• Floris
• Odval
• Ghazwan

*I actually had Baheshtur. It was only through making this post and checking one final time before posting, did I realize that there's an unbalance with Baheshtur (hates Katrin and I don't have Ghazwan). So I guess I'll need to drop him.

[Nimja1]

Why would you ever not have Lezalit or Jeremus. The starting Training and Surgery skill levels, respectively, is reason enough to always have them.

[jarlaxle1985]

That's a good point.

I actually wasn't thinking about specific people in general. I just knew I needed one guy to take on Pathfinding/Spotting/Tracking and one guy to take on Surgery/Wound Treatment/First Aid, and off I went. My rationale for that is that when you extrapolate to the end-game, with a possible level cap of 62 where initial stats/skills are not significant, numbers is king i.e. the combination with the most number of companions, wins.

In my mind, Borcha/Deshavi are options for the former and Jeremus/Ymira are options for the latter. As long as I have one for each function set, I'm good. Along the way, I realized that through tourneys, my own character is always going to be much higher in level than my companions. That's when I started thinking what if I took on some key skills myself? It was around this time that I learned about the Party Skill bonus you get if your own character got that skill at high levels.

So I eschewed my old way of pumping Str and Agi for direct combat skills, and prioritised Int. Started finding myself with all these skill points to spare. So I maxed out Persuasion, Leadership, Trainer, Surgery and Tactics on my own character. That took away the emphasis on having Jeremus. Ymira can grow up to prioritise Wound Treatment and First Aid, in the meantime.

What do you think, Nimja? Was it a waste of points? Should I have left Surgery and Tactics, both being Party Skills, to my companions instead?

[Nimja1]

No I agree in a sense that adding to yourself those skills is a great venture, Taking into account If you want to be king you might turn a few of these companions into Vassals of your own. But I do think the starting bonus should always be taken into account seeing as that skill can then be maxed earlier and other skills get the left over points.

But Also remember your character (unless changing your army commander to one of your companions) also needs skill points in Leader only skills, Namely Leadership, Prisoner Management, and (although not entirely) Inventory Management. Again all of these speculations are based upon the actual mechanics you will employ in your current playthrough, and your plans for end game. And of course if you under any self set rules for RPing.

In the end it's always my motto to remember "To each, his own"

[jarlaxle1985]

Hey that's brilliant! To use a companion as your battle commander, specifically for the Prisoner Management. I don't know if that will work (whether Floris has that mechanic in place) but if it does, that frees up Prisoner Management for me. I don't think it Floris has it in, though. Back in the campaign map is where prisoners are transacted; not the battlefield. I think the companion-as-commander mechanic is restricted to battlefield only.

Even if the above is true, I would still want Leadership on my character. Increased army capacity, reduced army upkeep, increased morale... all points not to be sneezed at.

I'm still unsure about Tactics, though. I feel like I can offload that to a companion i.e. the benefit of Tactics is good but I can wait for a companion to catch up to it. Any thoughts?

[Lavalya]

I use like, 4 tactics on Lezalit because I need to increase his int anyway which gives me alot of points. He's usually the guy I play as commander since he has difficulty getting XP in battle by himself since early points are invested into int for him.

Also, prison management only works on the leader, this hasn't changed.
It is quite possible though that having slavers in your party increases your skill, but im not sure how this works or even if it works.

I myself use these:

Bashetur (HA + Looting, Foraging, usually at the end when im actually raising an army)

Borcha (HA + 7 pathfinding, 4 spotting and 4 tracking)

Nizar (Usually knight, sometimes horse archer if I'm joining khergit)

Rolf (Doctor and knight)

Lezalit (Tactics, Trainer and a little foraging)

Matheld (Another knightly companion that I make as strong as possible)

Artimenner (first companion to get a horse + lance, eases up the experience gain for him as I invest quite some early points in int @ engineering, sometimes my secondary doctor since I get alot of points anyway)

Odval (A new companion that can be a horse archer! Yeeeesss!)

Alayen (Usually let him go to be my lord eventually, since I don't like him much but he is a very capable fighter)

SOMETIMES: Only if im not considering raiding villages in the future and feel like im able to stand the sight of them
Edwin (Kind of hate him but hes pretty flexible)
Nadia (Same thing, usually replaces rolf as doctor.)

With my own stats spread around between Pathfinding(6), Wound treatment(7), Surgery(7), First Aid(7), Persuasion(6) and a little leadership(4) and trading(4). And ofcourse 2 inventory management. I get about 21 intelligence as one of my first priorities. I just use my skills to compliment my whole party, as well as having those important skills when someone is down.
For the rest, I use any free points I get in ironflesh and shield since I really dislike getting mashed in one hit. (my build at lvl 30 is about 15-21-21-12, after that I get my str to 30 for pdraw/strike/ironflesh or whatever my build is)

[Thurak]

I use this sheet, orginally posted by monnikje:

(click to show/hide)

Momentarily:
Odval Floris Sajjad
Firentis Baheshtur Nadia
Artimenner Matheld Lezalit Rolf Borcha

I don't like to use Jeremus in every setup so I sometimes choose to ignore him completely like this game. Only problem here: Where is the medic? It's Borcha; after a few level ups it works

[MosesZD]

My current best is 12 companions:

Ymira  (Now a Lord.)
Alayen (Now a Lord.)
Bunduk
Nadia
Edwyn
Baheshtur
Firentis
Deshavi
Jeremus 
Ghazwan 

Just picked up:

Sajjad
Floris

[krisslanza]

I just grab all the female companions and we go around beating the snot out of men and taking lands.

Of course I play very... loosely. By that I mean I don't mind healing myself in battle. Yeah, I'm not a "pro" player or something. I just like beating up people and taking land. More fun in the kingdom management and such aspects of the mod, so I try to get land as soon as possible...

[jarlaxle1985]

Just thought I'd update this, for future readers. Found a stable combination for 13 companions. By "stable", I mean that:
- no companion has 2 companions in the party that he/she hates
- each companion that has 1 companion in the party that he/she hates, there is 1 companion that he/she likes

Best part is that it features all the popular candidates, like Jeremus (surgery/wound treatment/first aid), Artimenner (engineer) and Lezalit (trainer).

1) Jeremus
2) Odval
3) Ymira
4) Alayen
5) Artimenner
6) Lezalit
7) Edwyn
8) Nadia
9) Marnid
10) Borcha
11) Deshavi
12) Klethi
13) Firentis

Edit: Scratch that. Odval isn't stable. She doesn't like Alayen and Ymira both. Yet somehow, she hasn't threatened to leave yet. Weird.

[Eurafrica]

Just thought I'd update this, for future readers. Found a stable combination for 13 companions. By "stable", I mean that:
- no companion has 2 companions in the party that he/she hates
- each companion that has 1 companion in the party that he/she hates, there is 1 companion that he/she likes

Best part is that it features all the popular candidates, like Jeremus (surgery/wound treatment/first aid), Artimenner (engineer) and Lezalit (trainer).

1) Jeremus
2) Odval
3) Ymira
4) Alayen
5) Artimenner
6) Lezalit
7) Edwyn
Nadia
9) Marnid
10) Borcha
11) Deshavi
12) Klethi
13) Firentis

Edit: Scratch that. Odval isn't stable. She doesn't like Alayen and Ymira both. Yet somehow, she hasn't threatened to leave yet. Weird.

If you support her when she complains about Alayen and Ymira, and defend her when Alayen and Ymira complain about her you can keep everyone. Just don't piss them off any other areas (fleeing, raiding, not feeding, losing battles).

I do this with Floris in my setup. Also with a high persuasion skill you can talk them out of leaving fairly easily.

[jarlaxle1985]

Just thought I'd update this, for future readers. Found a stable combination for 13 companions. By "stable", I mean that:
- no companion has 2 companions in the party that he/she hates
- each companion that has 1 companion in the party that he/she hates, there is 1 companion that he/she likes

Best part is that it features all the popular candidates, like Jeremus (surgery/wound treatment/first aid), Artimenner (engineer) and Lezalit (trainer).

1) Jeremus
2) Odval
3) Ymira
4) Alayen
5) Artimenner
6) Lezalit
7) Edwyn
Nadia
9) Marnid
10) Borcha
11) Deshavi
12) Klethi
13) Firentis

Edit: Scratch that. Odval isn't stable. She doesn't like Alayen and Ymira both. Yet somehow, she hasn't threatened to leave yet. Weird.

If you support her when she complains about Alayen and Ymira, and defend her when Alayen and Ymira complain about her you can keep everyone. Just don't piss them off any other areas (fleeing, raiding, not feeding, losing battles).

I do this with Floris in my setup. Also with a high persuasion skill you can talk them out of leaving fairly easily.

Very nice tip, as always. Thanks Eurafrica.

So technically, with max Persuasion skill, you can have all the companions in the game with you? If they threaten to leave, your Persuasion gets them to stay?

[Lady Lithium]

In case anyone is still interested, I have found a stable combination of 13 companions.

• Ymira
• Sajjad
• Floris
• Alayen
• Baheshtur
• Marnid
• Nizar
• Firentis
• Borcha
• Gazwan
• Matheld
• Lezalit
• Rolf

Those that do conflict with each other have a liked person to balance their disliked person, and some are without conflict at all.

[Chylexx]

I mainly have Lezalit, Alayen and Matheld

[kalil]

So, I'm a geek.  I created an excel/visual basic program to find stable combinations of companions.  As it turns out, there are four stable 13-member combinations (one of which was found by Lady Lithium above):

(click to show/hide)

Borcha	Borcha	Borcha	Borcha
Marnid	Marnid	Marnid	Marnid
Rolf	Ymira	Ymira	Ymira
Basheshtur	Rolf	Rolf	Rolf
Firentis	Firentis	Firentis	Basheshtur
Matheld	Alayen	Alayen	Firentis
Jeremus	Bunduk	Bunduk	Matheld
Nizar	Katrin	Katrin	Alayen
Lezalit	Artimenner	Jeremus	Nizar
Floris	Floris	Floris	Lezalit
Odval	Nadia	Nadia	Floris
Sajjad	Sajjad	Sajjad	Sajjad
Ghazwan	Edwyn	Edwyn	Ghazwan

There are also 57 12-member combos.  I'm not going to put them all in the post, but you can find them here.