Don’t join a faction until mid-game. Keep early-game army small.

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Sir Shrek

Veteran
Recently, I posted about my strategy for companions. To be clear, although 4 start as skill monkeys and 4 start as fighters, by the time I entered the mid-game, my guys were all very skilled and they were all super soldiers imo (the person I got my strategy from described the companions as super soldiers when they have level 4 combat skills and are outfitted as I described in the other post. For some, "super soldier" might mean combat skills are 10). There’s enough skill points to do both. When I entered the mid-game, on font, they were all better than huscarls. Also, on foot, they were way better than Rhodok sharpshooters and on horseback they were wayyyyyy better than Swadian knights. I actually did some experiments to compare my guys to Calradia’s best. I’ll make a post of that later. This post is about another aspect of the strategy that I used.

Don’t join a faction until mid-game
I’ve read posts where people say you should join a faction early in the early-game. I don’t understand why. I think it’s bad advice. Last time I played, which was my first time, I didn’t join a faction until late in the early-game and I had no problems.

If you’re a member of a faction, you don’t earn money from the businesses you own in an enemy faction. Your faction will often be at war with another faction - sometimes 2 factions at once. This means you will lose a lot of money. By waiting until the mid-game to join a faction, you will earn money from all your businesses for the entire early-game.

To earn money as fast as possible from your businesses, visit each town and find out what the most profitable business would be. Do this when you’re close to having enough money to start setting up businesses. Rivacheg always has the most profitable business but after that it changes with each game. So set up a business in Rivacheg asap and then start visiting the other towns, if you haven't started already, to find out which business would be most profitable. Record all the information you get. When you’ve been to every town, sort the info in order from most profitable to least profitable. Set up the most profitable business first and work your way through the list to the least profitable. This is the fastest way to earn money in the early-game from businesses because you earn from the profitable businesses for a longer amount of time than the unprofitable businesses.

Keep your army small
I’ve seen posts from people with big armies and they have money problems. It’s fun to have a big army with archers, infantry and cavalry but it’s expensive and vulnerable to attack. In the end, you’re making the early-game harder in 2 ways. 
1) By having a big army with different types of units, you move slow on the world map for 2 reasons. Big armies move slower than small armies and armies with troops on foot move slower than mounted armies. So if your army is big and has troops on foot you will be a very slow-moving easy target for big enemy armies.
2) By having a big army, you spend a lot of money on wages.

One of my objectives in the early-game is to end up with an army of 8. Those 8 are my companions. Initially, to have only 8 companions in your party would make your party weak. It would be difficult to get horses, armour and other gear for free. So, I recruit 15 Swadians. I train the Swadians to be footmen, allowing me to capture horses from bandits very early in the early-game. I train the Swadians up to Man at arms (knights are too expensive at this point) and keep 10 of them. At this point I have 10 Man at arms and 8 companions in training. When the companions are comparable to Man at arms in both skill and gear, I start dismissing the Swadians. Eventually, I have only 8 companions and no one else in my party for the rest of the early-game.

By keeping my party small, I can move fast on the world map. The fastest speed I reached in my current game was 13.2. That’s fast. At times, my party was difficult to control over short distances because they would move so fast. This means I can easily outrun any army chasing me and catch up to any army.
By keeping my party small, wages are low. In the early-game of my current game, after I dismissed the Swadians, my weekly wages never reached 600 denars. Meanwhile, I was earning 11000 denars per week from all my businesses.

By keeping my party small and not joining a faction in the early-game, I ended up with 1.9 million denars when I entered the mid-game at about level 35.
 
I would like to know how long it takes with your strategy?
Because, I search in my screenshots (there was on time where I took some at the end of the game) and the result is:
- I finished lvl 36
- 718 days
For all of Calradia conquered.

But, as I search new ways of playing (I have all the steam successes :'( ) I will maybe try starting with recruting the companions first (but I presume it will be boring to visit all the towns in Calradia ^^ )

And, as written in the other thread, I do not invest in businesses as one town like Dirhim can provide more revenues than all the businesses in Calradia. Even with a good garrison.
 
The way I use the terms

EARLY GAME
I focus on earning money and setting up enterprises in more than half of the towns.

MID-GAME
Usually around level 20 I join a faction and focus on getting a town or castle and getting married.
Once Married, I take as many towns and castles as I can and demand to keep them until I get denied and can rebel.
Surviving the assault by the faction I just rebelled from I consider the end of mid-game.
I am usually mid to late 20s at this point and my companions are low 20s.

LATE GAME
Capturing the rest of the map is usually done by mid 30s. I don't think I have ever gotten to level 40.
 
Well you can do it either way.
Small free party: Farm bandits, do tourneys, buy enterprises, gain more exp. You'll eventually want a faction and lose some enterprise funding anyways though.

Early merc/vassal: Raid villages and kick lords butts. For many players this the meat of the game. There is an awkward time when you seem dependent on the raiding money to keep your 40 knights happy and then the wars end..... back to sea raiders and tourneys with no place to put your guys.

I personally like to merc early but I use about 20 knights and fill the rest up with khergets that I can dump if it goes to peace time. I do horse archery and my early army is just back up, I've played enough I can confidently take out a lord by myself with a box full of arrows. I usually play a lady and my goal is to rack up renown and honer and sack a husband with a castle in a faction I like. Once you got free day care for your troops it's a free for all of racking up denars and renown whenever it's to be found. I usually make the cheap enterprises so I'm not as put out when I go to war against them but put good enterprises in towns I plan to take early, typically Narra and Halmar.

Not true. I use the default difficulty.
Isn't that the easiest? Or is the it middle one..... it's not Normal that's for sure. Anyways I feel like this topic is more about the economics of a large party then the difficulty of battle.

By keeping my party small and not joining a faction in the early-game, I ended up with 1.9 million denars when I entered the mid-game at about level 35.
That's ridiculous. You could never spend anywhere near that amount plus if you just join a faction and take a rich town you get like 12 dye works worth of money. Also 35 is very highly leveled. For many people that is about the end of the game when they get there. I've gotten to 41 at the end of games where I murdered most of the garrisons personally with archery. Play how you want but that very over prepared for "mid-game". All the lords are going to be leaving the realm and it's going to be just you and kings.....
 
AnandaShanti said:
Not true. I use the default difficulty.
Isn't that the easiest? Or is the it middle one..... it's not Normal that's for sure. Anyways I feel like this topic is more about the economics of a large party then the difficulty of battle.
Click to expand...

No, the easiest difficulty for damage to the player and friends is called "easiest", combat and campaign AI is "poor" and combat speed is "slowest". The default for damage to player and friends is called "easy", combat and campaign AI is "average" and combat speed is "slower". It's my 2nd time playing and first time in the mid-game. I used the defaults but increased combat speed to "normal".

By keeping my party small and not joining a faction in the early-game, I ended up with 1.9 million denars when I entered the mid-game at about level 35.
That's ridiculous. You could never spend anywhere near that amount plus if you just join a faction and take a rich town you get like 12 dye works worth of money. Also 35 is very highly leveled. For many people that is about the end of the game when they get there. I've gotten to 41 at the end of games where I murdered most of the garrisons personally with archery. Play how you want but that very over prepared for "mid-game". All the lords are going to be leaving the realm and it's going to be just you and kings.....
Click to expand...

It can't be ridiculous if you've never done it before. The strategy wasn't to earn as much money as possible, it was to get Int skills to 10 before entering the mid-game. By the time I had done that, I had 1.9 million denars. Isn't the objective to have Int skills at 10 before entering the mid-game? If not, then how high should they be?
 
No, the easiest difficulty
You're playing on baby mode. Start over and turn it up to 111% difficulty for the real deal.

It can't be ridiculous if you've never done it before. The strategy wasn't to earn as much money as possible, it was to get Int skills to 10 before entering the mid-game. By the time I had done that, I had 1.9 million denars. Isn't the objective to have Int skills at 10 before entering the mid-game? If not, then how high should they be?

The mid game started long ago without you. You can get your character to 27 int very fast and have max surgery, plus a couple other good int skills. If you're trying to get them on companions it can take the whole game and they'll never be as good as the 14 you can get, so why bother?
 
I generally play one step above default difficulty, which is enough to provide some challenge, particularly with my no-longer-youthful reflexes.

First step, after soloing a few Looter parties for experience, is to pick up a handful of troops to support you, and go looking for Companions and bandits.  My usual preference is around 5-10 Khergit levies, who rank up rather quickly into mounted troops.  Swadians take longer to train, but Men at Arms are worth the effort, and can later be upgraded to Swadian Knights once you've got the finances to afford it, so that's what I look for to replace some of the losses from the original Khergit troopers.  Between the Khergits and Swadians, that's enough ranged and melee firepower (all mounted) to babysit your rookie Companions until they can look after themselves.  I like to keep the party down to around 15-20 until my Companions and I are up to at least Level 10 and decently equipped, which is powerful enough to take on Forest and Mountain Bandit parties considerably larger than themselves with few or no losses, yet easily outrun any serious threats.  At that point, you should be able to take on small Sea Raider parties, which provide excellent loot, and have a couple of businesses running for a steady income.

THEN it's time to join a faction and get a castle.  At that point, you suddenly need to train up large numbers of troops for a garrison, and hauling a lot of troops around will cut into your share of the loot, as well as eat mass quantities of food, so you need either a good income or a decent cash reserve to tide you over until those new troops are up to par.  From there, it's on to picking up a town or two and getting married, then preparing for the inevitable rebellion to form your own kingdom.
 
When I join a faction largely depends on when one of the cities I like to own gets captured. If a city gets captured by a faction and you jump in to capture it for yourself while the garrison is still small, and then turn around and immediately join whatever faction that city belonged to originally, you get to keep it, along with all the attached villages.

I've actually never owned a business in the game, but just collecting the taxes from a city and all the attached villages brings in quite a bit of cash, even if you aren't still fighting and raiding.
 
Maximus Decimus Meridius1 said:
Recently, I posted about my strategy for companions. To be clear, although 4 start as skill monkeys and 4 start as fighters, by the time I entered the mid-game, my guys were all very skilled and they were all super soldiers imo (the person I got my strategy from described the companions as super soldiers when they have level 4 combat skills and are outfitted as I described in the other post. For some, "super soldier" might mean combat skills are 10). There’s enough skill points to do both. When I entered the mid-game, on font, they were all better than huscarls. Also, on foot, they were way better than Rhodok sharpshooters and on horseback they were wayyyyyy better than Swadian knights. I actually did some experiments to compare my guys to Calradia’s best. I’ll make a post of that later. This post is about another aspect of the strategy that I used.

Don’t join a faction until mid-game
I’ve read posts where people say you should join a faction early in the early-game. I don’t understand why. I think it’s bad advice. Last time I played, which was my first time, I didn’t join a faction until late in the early-game and I had no problems.

If you’re a member of a faction, you don’t earn money from the businesses you own in an enemy faction. Your faction will often be at war with another faction - sometimes 2 factions at once. This means you will lose a lot of money. By waiting until the mid-game to join a faction, you will earn money from all your businesses for the entire early-game.

To earn money as fast as possible from your businesses, visit each town and find out what the most profitable business would be. Do this when you’re close to having enough money to start setting up businesses. Rivacheg always has the most profitable business but after that it changes with each game. So set up a business in Rivacheg asap and then start visiting the other towns, if you haven't started already, to find out which business would be most profitable. Record all the information you get. When you’ve been to every town, sort the info in order from most profitable to least profitable. Set up the most profitable business first and work your way through the list to the least profitable. This is the fastest way to earn money in the early-game from businesses because you earn from the profitable businesses for a longer amount of time than the unprofitable businesses.

Keep your army small
I’ve seen posts from people with big armies and they have money problems. It’s fun to have a big army with archers, infantry and cavalry but it’s expensive and vulnerable to attack. In the end, you’re making the early-game harder in 2 ways. 
1) By having a big army with different types of units, you move slow on the world map for 2 reasons. Big armies move slower than small armies and armies with troops on foot move slower than mounted armies. So if your army is big and has troops on foot you will be a very slow-moving easy target for big enemy armies.
2) By having a big army, you spend a lot of money on wages.

One of my objectives in the early-game is to end up with an army of 8. Those 8 are my companions. Initially, to have only 8 companions in your party would make your party weak. It would be difficult to get horses, armour and other gear for free. So, I recruit 15 Swadians. I train the Swadians to be footmen, allowing me to capture horses from bandits very early in the early-game. I train the Swadians up to Man at arms (knights are too expensive at this point) and keep 10 of them. At this point I have 10 Man at arms and 8 companions in training. When the companions are comparable to Man at arms in both skill and gear, I start dismissing the Swadians. Eventually, I have only 8 companions and no one else in my party for the rest of the early-game.

By keeping my party small, I can move fast on the world map. The fastest speed I reached in my current game was 13.2. That’s fast. At times, my party was difficult to control over short distances because they would move so fast. This means I can easily outrun any army chasing me and catch up to any army.
By keeping my party small, wages are low. In the early-game of my current game, after I dismissed the Swadians, my weekly wages never reached 600 denars. Meanwhile, I was earning 11000 denars per week from all my businesses.

By keeping my party small and not joining a faction in the early-game, I ended up with 1.9 million denars when I entered the mid-game at about level 35.
Click to expand...
Playing without enterpraises and being in a faction early is 100% viable. You can have a large army, no money problems and move fast on world map - lvl up path finding skill. I only have 2-3 companions normally to cover party skills, that's all. You don't have to have 8 or more of them, to be successful. Also, opening up enterpraises isn't fast way to earn money. You have to spend like 100 000 denars first and wait for 2 in-game months till you start gain profit.
It is all possibilities and there isn't the best way to play a sandbox game.
 
Sir Shrek said:
Recently, I posted about my strategy for companions. To be clear, although 4 start as skill monkeys and 4 start as fighters, by the time I entered the mid-game, my guys were all very skilled and they were all super soldiers imo (the person I got my strategy from described the companions as super soldiers when they have level 4 combat skills and are outfitted as I described in the other post. For some, "super soldier" might mean combat skills are 10). There’s enough skill points to do both. When I entered the mid-game, on font, they were all better than huscarls. Also, on foot, they were way better than Rhodok sharpshooters and on horseback they were wayyyyyy better than Swadian knights. I actually did some experiments to compare my guys to Calradia’s best. I’ll make a post of that later. This post is about another aspect of the strategy that I used.

Don’t join a faction until mid-game
I’ve read posts where people say you should join a faction early in the early-game. I don’t understand why. I think it’s bad advice. Last time I played, which was my first time, I didn’t join a faction until late in the early-game and I had no problems.

If you’re a member of a faction, you don’t earn money from the businesses you own in an enemy faction. Your faction will often be at war with another faction - sometimes 2 factions at once. This means you will lose a lot of money. By waiting until the mid-game to join a faction, you will earn money from all your businesses for the entire early-game.

To earn money as fast as possible from your businesses, visit each town and find out what the most profitable business would be. Do this when you’re close to having enough money to start setting up businesses. Rivacheg always has the most profitable business but after that it changes with each game. So set up a business in Rivacheg asap and then start visiting the other towns, if you haven't started already, to find out which business would be most profitable. Record all the information you get. When you’ve been to every town, sort the info in order from most profitable to least profitable. Set up the most profitable business first and work your way through the list to the least profitable. This is the fastest way to earn money in the early-game from businesses because you earn from the profitable businesses for a longer amount of time than the unprofitable businesses.

Keep your army small
I’ve seen posts from people with big armies and they have money problems. It’s fun to have a big army with archers, infantry and cavalry but it’s expensive and vulnerable to attack. In the end, you’re making the early-game harder in 2 ways.
1) By having a big army with different types of units, you move slow on the world map for 2 reasons. Big armies move slower than small armies and armies with troops on foot move slower than mounted armies. So if your army is big and has troops on foot you will be a very slow-moving easy target for big enemy armies.
2) By having a big army, you spend a lot of money on wages.

One of my objectives in the early-game is to end up with an army of 8. Those 8 are my companions. Initially, to have only 8 companions in your party would make your party weak. It would be difficult to get horses, armour and other gear for free. So, I recruit 15 Swadians. I train the Swadians to be footmen, allowing me to capture horses from bandits very early in the early-game. I train the Swadians up to Man at arms (knights are too expensive at this point) and keep 10 of them. At this point I have 10 Man at arms and 8 companions in training. When the companions are comparable to Man at arms in both skill and gear, I start dismissing the Swadians. Eventually, I have only 8 companions and no one else in my party for the rest of the early-game.

By keeping my party small, I can move fast on the world map. The fastest speed I reached in my current game was 13.2. That’s fast. At times, my party was difficult to control over short distances because they would move so fast. This means I can easily outrun any army chasing me and catch up to any army.
By keeping my party small, wages are low. In the early-game of my current game, after I dismissed the Swadians, my weekly wages never reached 600 denars. Meanwhile, I was earning 11000 denars per week from all my businesses.

By keeping my party small and not joining a faction in the early-game, I ended up with 1.9 million denars when I entered the mid-game at about level 35.
Click to expand...
I will dismantle your companion posts soon after this. For now, I will address this thread specifically. First off, mid-game is having a town, a spouse, at least 200 men total of which half of these are T5, level 17, and last but not least, 600 renown minimum. For the best of us, this all takes 70-90 days, with some luck and absolutely no morals or roleplaying. You have 200-270 days before
The Indictment Death Spiral of Doom, Despair, and more Doom begins at this point.
To delay joining a faction until even half these things have been accomplished is ludicrous, unless you like being alone with a bunch of paranoid pretenders.

Secondly, productive enterprises take a long time, about 140 days, to begin being profitable. As long as you are mindful of the bandits, you can get up to 11 weeks of Dyework returns, in 1 day, with a companion who has 5 or more Looting skill, cut that time significantly alongside a noticeable increase in money. You won't be an enemy of the faction, but it will count as a provocation if you are in another faction. "But, muh honor11!!1" There is no greater honor than victory itself. How to get greater wealth than what enterprises offer, you might ask? Take a Hunting Crossbow, get 3 stacks of Bent Bolts or any other kind, a horse, and a moral compass that permits slaughter and/or war crimes, go alone or with just a mounted Looter companion, take a hostile action at your target village, and demand their supplies. "No, insolent farmer, you're mistaken. It IS harvesting season." Use the local wildlife for headshot practice, netting some xp and perhaps renown as well.

I will give credit where it is due. You managed to identify a basic concept of avoiding the same foolishness the AI suffers from, regarding mixed warbands. But that's where your correct information ends, and your nonsense returns. Once again, I will address the companion stuff in your other thread. First off, if you follow my superior instructions above, you will want for nothing regarding money, gear, horses, food etc. While it won't be until level 19 that an optimal character will begin lowering wages again, unless you stuff your first town with 300 Swadian Knights or similar units, you won't have any problems with wages. Secondly, while I agree getting over 50 men early on isn't a good idea, you will need to be at or near max numbers you are allowed to use to take your first town. Otherwise, they sally forth, which will quickly destroy your designs on that town, and any other, for a while. You specifically want as many Rhodok Sharpshooters, or other, inferior ranged T5s as you can lead, for your first town.

It's amusing that you seem to sincerely believe 35 is the mid-game, as most finish off the final false king cowering in his puny castle by level 35. Turtling at Easy difficulty WILL result in numerous misconceptions. I just now realized you vanished a few years ago. A pity, as I was hoping to skewer more misinformation you would spread.
 
Sounds like you are a noob. I never needed to do much about money, I just went straight for the biggest, best army, and for capturing cities. Tournament victories, loot and prisoners give you more than enough. Cities give you a good profit too.

Sir Shrek said:
This means I can easily outrun any army chasing me and catch up to any army.
Click to expand...
With such a pathetic army there is no point of catching up to anyone though xD

Sir Shrek said:
Meanwhile, I was earning 11000 denars per week from all my businesses.
Click to expand...
Yeah, and first you had to put hundreds of denars into it, at which point you are just better off using this to proceed faster, because enterprises take months to even start paying off xD

Sir Shrek said:
By keeping my party small and not joining a faction in the early-game, I ended up with 1.9 million denars when I entered the mid-game at about level 35.
Click to expand...
What the ****? Ok, now admit how many days did it take you? And why would you even need so much money? How did you not get bored doing nothing but grinding money which you will never use, for dozens of hours? xD
You probably spent a lot of that time just waiting in castles, to skip a few weeks, and get profit, instead of getting money like a normal player xD
 
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