Army size: 1138

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Thorlac

Recruit
First of all: Ty for a great mod :smile:

Now for my question:
I am almost 400 days into the game with my own kingdom (I broke my oath to Ravenstone because of the incompetent leadership :wink:).
I now see Lord Burgundus fielding an army of 1138 men  :shock: Is this "normal"? Any suggestions as to how to deal with that amount of troops, or will I just have to see him steamroll my small kingdom? Ofcourse the king and and other lords are with him too. The king is only fielding ~250 men though. My max. army size is around 145 men atm.
http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/r_nQLcl45yfJcjNIqt1Z5g?feat=directlink

Hmm, I am starting to worry something is broken... when heading home for reinforcements (was using my "reckon" army), I met defeated a couple of armies in the 120-180 men range, then met another Ravenstern lord with an army of 800+... How they can afford these armies is a mystery to me :wink:
 
Well, get high-tier troops. It's meant to be hard.

And see what troops the lord has in his massive army? If most of them are militias etc. low-tier troops, 50 archers or so will rip them in half with 0 casualties in a couple of minutes.
 
I haven't seen any lord with an army above the 300 mark,including kings,and the minor faction armies were like 700 or so.
So that's an interesting situation.You can always lower the battle sizer and pwn anything you come across.

PS.The kingdom's name is Ravenstern,sounds half english half german,and if I'm not wrong,should translate into ravenstar in english.

~Ãbyss
 
Well, my concern is purely about numbers... being outnumbered 1:8 is never good in my experience. I've won with 1:3 or even 1:4 odds - never with 1:8 though.
I would have thought it impossible for a single lord to field such numbers however - no kings or even minor faction armies, Jatu armies etc. are this massive.

I guess I'll have to try using all my knights of the unicorn, possibly supported by silvermist rangers...
 
If a lord defeats an opponent with a huge amount of prisoners (often a weakened neutral NPC hero army or large army) then all those prisoners are put into that lord's troop pool. A lord with 150 troops can easily become a lord with 650 troops. If he does this again he'd touch your near 1150.

My advice is dealing with that lord soon. He's probably no danger but theoretically he could smash so many lords and armies with that number of troops that he'd be able grow indefinitely. Also he'd chase lords away by getting near them, where even multiple opponent lords do not trigger a 'team up and feel stronger together' reaction thus do not engage. It may create an imbalance where other factions do not take castles with him roaming around.

edit: On a fun note, I see he has Wolfbode captured. If you beat this lord, you can free Wolfbode and recruit him.

tip: Anger this guy, piss him off and have him follow you. He might be able to beat Ithilrandir for you when he spawns.
 
I've seen Konig what's-his-name, the king of the Fierdsvain a LOT of times fielding +300 men parties. King Gregory IV of the Ravenstern usually fields in the upper 200, and I've seen him with 300. I also spotted the D'Shar khan (king) running around with a 303 man party. I've never witnessed a regular lord fielding 1000 though, we beat lords left and right, a couple of days later they're already roaming the map with a 100 map party again. That's annoying, and seeing that 1000 men party in my game would really kill the fun.
 
Sara is exactly right, I've seen Count Stephen do this when he caught Wolfbode after he was ground down a bit and he rescued a huge amount of prisoners. I think her advice on dealing with this is sound also, I recruited Boris the Raven and a huge amount of his Knights of the Raven Spear by rescuing them as prisoners from a Fierdsvain Lord, it was like winning the lottery.
 
Thanks for the advice :smile: Just got a chance to fight that army, while defending a city - I think/hope that will give me enough of an advantage to take it out.
I do wish npc lords had to pay and support their troops too though, at least when they're in one of the kingdoms. Having 1 kingdom able to field an army of 1100+ and one of 800+ could seriously impact the game, if you can't "catch" them in the right spot (like a city siege).
 
Thorlac said:
Thanks for the advice :smile: Just got a chance to fight that army, while defending a city - I think/hope that will give me enough of an advantage to take it out.
I do wish npc lords had to pay and support their troops too though, at least when they're in one of the kingdoms. Having 1 kingdom able to field an army of 1100+ and one of 800+ could seriously impact the game, if you can't "catch" them in the right spot (like a city siege).

The lords are supposed to have to pay for their armies, but not only does it seem not strictly enforced by the game, it also seems they don't get desertions from NOT paying, that I've seen.

And the previous posters were spot-on regarding how it happened.

Wolfbode took out a bunch of armies and then was finally taken down by this guy (and probably a couple other lords).  They automatically grabbed all the prisoners as recruits and it ignored their max army size somehow during the process (might have to do with stacks being pulled instead of one at a time).

And this army will be far easier to deal with than Eyegrim (1000 undead), so I don't think it changes the challenge for you, it just means that Ravenstern would be able to conquer several castles without breaking a sweat if this lord was aggressive.
 
Thank you all for the input. So far I've got both armies down to 700+ - so maybe I can grind them down given time. As long as my small kingdom is not attacked from another side. I still cant take down a 700+ army though. I can win 1 or 2 battles, then the attrition sets in, and I start loosing.
 
by the way, does anyone know the troop limit for lord by any chance? ( both player's lord and other faction's enemy lord? )

One of the lord who joined my kingdom now has around 300 troops.
and most of the lords in my faction have at least 200 men. ( while most enemy lord have around 150 men )




 
hohyss said:
by the way, does anyone know the troop limit for lord by any chance? ( both player's lord and other faction's enemy lord? )

One of the lord who joined my kingdom now has around 300 troops.
and most of the lords in my faction have at least 200 men. ( while most enemy lord have around 150 men )
AFAIK, SD fixed it so that it calculates  for them according to the same rules as for you.  Leadership skill, charisma attribute, and renown.  Renown is the biggie, some lords start with over 1000 and it grows as the game progresses.
 
Pode said:
hohyss said:
by the way, does anyone know the troop limit for lord by any chance? ( both player's lord and other faction's enemy lord? )

One of the lord who joined my kingdom now has around 300 troops.
and most of the lords in my faction have at least 200 men. ( while most enemy lord have around 150 men )
AFAIK, SD fixed it so that it calculates  for them according to the same rules as for you.  Leadership skill, charisma attribute, and renown.  Renown is the biggie, some lords start with over 1000 and it grows as the game progresses.

Particularly Fiersdvain Lords will have very large armies, perhaps to "make up" for limited ranged-killer capabilities (compared to other factions.)
 
Fierdsvain have the largest faction armies.

What has happened here is that the Mystmountain Armies lurking around have finally fallen to Ravenstern´s might and the Lord leading the battle has rescued all the Ravenstern prisoners is got. If it had been a Jatu Army there had been Sarleon prisoners as well.

Those Mystmountain Armies tend to collect a hellish lot of prisoners over the time - and if there are three or four of them roaming the area it´s Fat Lunch Time for whichever Lord defeats the first army stack with 300+ prisoners and immediately goes after the second one.

The only way around this is to defeat those armies yourself. A great way to boost allies.
 
I'm sort of curious to experiment with this. I want to find the pivoting point. That is the point where an army is so strong that whole factions do not dare to face that army together and subsequently the army can go on endless raids, capture castles, free more prisoners and so on. Practically, the army'd grow like a cancer. It'd take the coinciding of several friendly factions and being a marshall yourself to tackle an army when it gets to that point. If armies can grow indefinately in M&B, that'd mean we're talking probably about a number close to and somewhere between to 1800 and 2400 where there's a point of no return and where an army (if not intervened by the player) will only keep growing.
 
Sara said:
I'm sort of curious to experiment with this. I want to find the pivoting point. That is the point where an army is so strong that whole factions do not dare to face that army together and subsequently the army can go on endless raids, capture castles, free more prisoners and so on. Practically, the army'd grow like a cancer. It'd take the coinciding of several friendly factions and being a marshall yourself to tackle an army when it gets to that point. If armies can grow indefinately in M&B, that'd mean we're talking probably about a number close to and somewhere between to 1800 and 2400 where there's a point of no return and where an army (if not intervened by the player) will only keep growing.

Dunno, there are some damping factors.  The bigger it gets, the slower it gets, so its opportunities for combat dry up as everything else can run from it.  So eventually its only growth opportunities are sieges.  AI targeting priority goes to the least garrisoned centers, which are often the ones with the fewest prisoners.  So the odds are it takes more losses than it can replace, since defenders have such a powerful advantage in sieges.  Also, there's a strength cap in autoresolved fights that (if I understand the system right) means that above a certain point, more troops don't add to the strength rating but they do die in combat since damage is percentage based.  So I think it's more likley to be unstable the other way, slowly shrinking down to a more sane size.
 
Pode said:
Sara said:
I'm sort of curious to experiment with this. I want to find the pivoting point. That is the point where an army is so strong that whole factions do not dare to face that army together and subsequently the army can go on endless raids, capture castles, free more prisoners and so on. Practically, the army'd grow like a cancer. It'd take the coinciding of several friendly factions and being a marshall yourself to tackle an army when it gets to that point. If armies can grow indefinately in M&B, that'd mean we're talking probably about a number close to and somewhere between to 1800 and 2400 where there's a point of no return and where an army (if not intervened by the player) will only keep growing.

Dunno, there are some damping factors.  The bigger it gets, the slower it gets, so its opportunities for combat dry up as everything else can run from it.  So eventually its only growth opportunities are sieges.  AI targeting priority goes to the least garrisoned centers, which are often the ones with the fewest prisoners.  So the odds are it takes more losses than it can replace, since defenders have such a powerful advantage in sieges.  Also, there's a strength cap in autoresolved fights that (if I understand the system right) means that above a certain point, more troops don't add to the strength rating but they do die in combat since damage is percentage based.  So I think it's more likley to be unstable the other way, slowly shrinking down to a more sane size.

Pode, your solutions to issues, and theories on how things work always make me think of you as:
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well instead of thinking of this as a glitch, think of it more as a great challenge (even though you might lose 3/4 of all your men in one fight :shock:)

iv'e managed to hold an Fierdsvain army of over 800 with 75 men long enough to lower there numbers to a more controlable size (though i did lose 68 men and near to all my knights) :sad:... it does require though much tactics, luck and skill (which shouldn't trouble you after 400 game days...)
 
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