What is up with Empire noble line recruitment

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I just finished a playthru of Vlandia having just come back to the game (havent played since release) and decided to start up an empire campaign. The first thing that stuck me is how ridiculously difficult recruiting cataphracts are, atleast compared to vlandian banner knights.

First off, the raw recruitment numbers just seem really low. I just spent 40 ingame days doing nothing but following a path to hit all the 'recommended' recruitment spots for cataphracts, aswell as hitting many villages in inbetween. My haul, 4 vigla recruits. This is a far lower time to return ratio than any other faction I have played. This is not to mention that the empire is (i think) the only faction where you can not recruit the noble line from bandits.

Second, atleast compared to the Vlandian noble line, it is harder to actually level up the empire noble line than the Vlandians due to the rather abysmal combat capabilities of the Vigla, being basically jumped up tier 1 recruits, the survival rates from vigla to atleast heavy horseman seems like it would be very very bad. This is again, in contrast to Vlandia where (playing on all hardest settings) I am able to get about 70% of my noble recruits upto atleast tier 5.

Third, not only is it so much easier to get the noble line for the Vlandians but there is also an alternative with the knight, that, while not very good, still provides some alternative if you are having problem getting a critical mass of nobles.

Now, all this could be explained away if the cataphract was some mythical unit that simply outclassed all others to such an extent that there was no alternative but to make it really hard to get. This would be true, however, if the cataphract wasnt effectively a worse version of the vlandian banner knight. It is also worse than the khans guard which, while I havent tried to recruit myself, I am aware can be recruited from bandits quite easily.

Please tell me that I am crazy and that I am simply doing a simple thing wrong and that no it really doesnt take two hours to get a handful of nobles (one of which will actually survive to be a cataphract). If not, how is this defensible?
 
I just did a quick scour of the khuzaits, it took me just less than half their kingdom to find 10 people who I could recruit nobles sons from either immediately or they had a quest available that would give the reputation.
 
That's just your current playthorugh in which empire villages are raided and their notable influences dropped.
 
They're notoriously harder to get then other noble troops. I assume you're hitting up all the villages attached to castles which now will get more then they did in older versions. I haven't tried to get any in my current games but I know the empire always kinda goes into the dumpster on nobles in past games. They tend to be in constant war and get raided all over and notables lose power faster then other factions.
 
For gathering cataphracts, it's easier going to war with Empire factions and recruiting prisoners. It doesn't take too long. I've got 50 or so in my current party and that seems to do the trick.

I don't have any trouble finding Vigla recruits... but it just takes way too long turning them into top tier cavalry.

For me the quickest way to getting Vigla recruits seems to be owning a castle and setting it to max troop budget then going off and doing other things = passive Vigla recruitment - seems to be the same for any faction.
 
Please tell me that I am crazy and that I am simply doing a simple thing wrong and that no it really doesnt take two hours to get a handful of nobles (one of which will actually survive to be a cataphract). If not, how is this defensible?
I'm pretty sure you're not crazy. Sturgia sucking is one of the more common observations of how busted this game is in general. I haven't experienced the new patch yet, but my guess is that the problem is with settlement prosperity.

Low prosperity means low notable power means low noble troop availability.

People have been complaining a bunch about Sturgia being UP for a while, but I haven't seen this specific issue discussed.

You should probably drop this in the suggestions, maybe after doing some more experimentation to see if you can figure out the root of the issue. I wouldn't trust TW to do anything with it, personally, but others have been saying that TW is really trying to be better. Your mileage may vary, but it's worth a shot.

EDIT: Get Improved Garrisons mod. That allows QOL options for recruiting noble troops IIRC. Most glaring problems with this game can only be mitigated by mods.
 
Don't forget the new discarding weapons/armor mechanic. Late-game, you can power level vigla recruits straight to cataphracts.

It then creates a positive feedback loop, with battles giving more gear to level up more troops.
 
They are the hardest to get mainly because there is no rebel unit that converts to the imperial noble line like the other factions have.
Yeah, I wonder why it is this way.

The canon bandit of Empire is Looters but if I remember correctly they don't convert to nobles unlike other factions' canon bandits.

Maybe Looters should stay as a general bandit and Empire should receive a new dedicated bandit type that converts into nobles.
 
They're definitely tougher to get going and typically end up requiring you working on boosting up a bunch of villages (which may just get tougher under 1.60 and lower hearth growth) so they can regularly push out Vigla recruits at a better pace. Or you just.. get lucky and convert a bunch of equites from different sources.

The Infantry to Cavalry jump is another issue. And one which Sturgia shares (and suffers more from).

I think one solution for that (and for Sturgia by extension) would simply be to have the villages offer them in greater numbers. That way making it easier to get them but also compensating for the higher attrition they go through.

But otherwise for now. Just focus on building up villages and doing missions for them. Since that typically helps in making them more accessible in larger numbers.
 
I had no problems amassing imperial nobles in 1.6 once I acquired my first castle (border fief betwen battania and WE) and with the new steward perks, I also skipped the tier 2 infantry fase with exp from loot.

I am doing a full cavalry party (imperial and battanian scouts + some vlandian prisioners) and I'm doing pretty okey even tho they still miss sometimes, but it's getting better.
 
For gathering cataphracts, it's easier going to war with Empire factions and recruiting prisoners. It doesn't take too long. I've got 50 or so in my current party and that seems to do the trick.

I don't have any trouble finding Vigla recruits... but it just takes way too long turning them into top tier cavalry.

For me the quickest way to getting Vigla recruits seems to be owning a castle and setting it to max troop budget then going off and doing other things = passive Vigla recruitment - seems to be the same for any faction.
you can set troop budgets? How does one do this?
 
you can set troop budgets? How does one do this?

If you go to your clan party screen and select the garrison party, you'll get a budget slider - by default it is set to infinite.

You have to be careful tho, depending on governor traits setting your budget too low can cause ongoing desertions especially if you have donated high tier troops that squeeze the budget.
 
If you go to your clan party screen and select the garrison party, you'll get a budget slider - by default it is set to infinite.

You have to be careful tho, depending on governor traits setting your budget too low can cause ongoing desertions especially if you have donated high tier troops that squeeze the budget.
O I see, you are talking about giving your party members large budgets and then just looting their parties :smile:
 
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