good troops in the beginning?

[sandoval]

I started playing this Weekend and much impressed by this mod, but sadly I have no fun. I just seem unable to achieve anything because my troops are trash.

to do quests, I need competent troops
to get competent troops, I need xp to upgrade
to get xp, I need quests done.

I'm in a fix. I tried to hire mercenaries, but found only one group of 5 which are not completely useless. Not enough to get anything done. Training camp is a joke.
I'm bored (because I can't do anything) or angry (because when I try something I always fail). It's now day 50 and I'm about to give up.

So where do I get competent troops?

 

[kraggrim]

Rescuing prisoners basically.  You quite often see bandits with prisoner Spearmen who are semi decent and upgrade straight to Veteran Warriors. Often light cavalry too, Marchocs (I think) being the best.

Recruting prisoners as well, like scotos, dena and francish bandits. Once you've recruited them store them once in your supply wagon/ship/lair overnight to stop them running away.  Should try and get a ship as quickly as possible, 19 thousand gold from the shipwright in port scene. Keep 14 peasants in it as crew to stop it getting stolen.

If you want cavalry quickly then recruit fresians from some of the villages between Lundenwic and Rendelsham. They go straight from peasants to light cavalry, though not to heavy cavalry unfortunately.

 

[Ivan Khan]

I have been doing ok with rescued prisoners, single recruited prisoners, and companions. Have a band of 35 right now. As for hiring mercenaries check what you are hiring. The longbowmen you get in West Britan are very useful.

As for training up troops I suspect I will not be training any up until me and my companions are at higher levels. Tournaments are pretty easy to win and you can join other battles to get experience from kills, high end rescued prisoners and high end prisoners to recruit.

It is a little harder but it can be done.

 

[Inanch-Bilge]

Franks will butcher anything you bring I don't know why these guys are so powerful, a balance issue or it has a historical background ?

 

[Vesku]

Frisians is the best choice at start, get some light cavalry to keep your movement up. That gives you the possibility to choose who you fight, if you take a lot of peasants with you any heavy party will catch and butcher you. Once you have your cav start killing light bandit groups for xp and money ... and keep doing that. At some point you notice that you've picked up a lot of troops from the prisoners you've rescued.

Inanch-Bilge, Franks are tough for the very early part of the game. They are actually my enemy of choice through most of the game, easy to kill and have good chance to drop mail armor.

 

[dutch81]

Or start in Ireland the bandits there are not as tough.

 

[Ivan Khan]

Or start in Ireland the bandits there are not as tough.

Or, you can just move North  and West in Britain. I am now on Day 16 and have a band that can now move south and take on Franks and Dena Pirates.

 

[kraggrim]

Fighting the young warriors parties can work well too. They're not that tough and quite often have good prisoners like bandit chiefs and  dena pirates. The nice thing is if they attack you and they look too strong you can just tell them "the criminals went that way"  and then leg it.

 

[sandoval]

my heap of trash has now officially got wiped out by some other heap of trash. That's it, I'm done.


as a general note I would like to add that apparantly a lot of work went into this mod, but they somehow overlooked to provide the necessary info to the player, making their efforts somewhat wasted (unless there is a manual somewhere which I have missed).

 

[Warhorse]

What I do is recruit Frisans along the coast line in the south where the Saxons are. Herr Hiaw, Clacu Inga, Bucgan Ora, Cyminguraham, Gippeswic are the Villages that I have found so far(spelling might be off). I try to get around 30 and then head out of that Saxon area towards the middle of England and fight bandits and then start selling the ones you capture. It not easy, but if you save the game often in the beginning to avoid mistakes it should be rewarding. The Frisans are a nice heavy Infantry once they advanced to Skel(sp?). Also if you try the new modded Liar, it add features where you can train recruits will you are traveling about. Hope it helps, never give up.

 

[sandoval]

I didn't give up instead I decided to try things out. So I bought a ship. Now what?

Can I land anywhere? How do I do that? I can't find any info.

 

[Warhorse]

Don't to much about the ships, if you want to go to Ireland all you do is click on it and you will rent a ship to get across.

 

[MickDick]

Become an outlaw.

Go to snowy northern area of england.

Hire the outlaws there for like... 10-50 denars each.  (This playstyle is quite broken as **** so...)

Spam them on your enemies.  Rinse repeat.

Once you have enough cash, build a lair.  Start storing high tier troops in it.  Dont worry about garrison as no one will ever attack it (TBH I REALLY wish this was change, where it would be attacked by a local militia, or a lord, or something.  it's illegal obviously)

Recruit them when there is enough and then store them in garrison.

 

[Tocan]

Become an outlaw.

Go to snowy northern area of england.

Hire the outlaws there for like... 10-50 denars each.  (This playstyle is quite broken as **** so...)

everytime you do this you loose a lot of honor... (like -50 or something)

Once you have enough cash, build a lair.  Start storing high tier troops in it.  Dont worry about garrison as no one will ever attack it (TBH I REALLY wish this was change, where it would be attacked by a local militia, or a lord, or something.  it's illegal obviously)

Fire_and_Blood has expanded the functionality of the lair
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,314825.0.html

 

[MickDick]

Become an outlaw.

Go to snowy northern area of england.

Hire the outlaws there for like... 10-50 denars each.  (This playstyle is quite broken as **** so...)

everytime you do this you loose a lot of honor... (like -50 or something)


Honor is actually very balanced in this mod.

It's very clear that it's a short term but extremely worthwhile gain to be dishonorable.

Late game, it's good to have been honorable, so you a lot of the upstanding lords will like you.

Of course... there is nothing saying you cannot make yourself honorable later on.

I have not played brytenwalda in a little while, but I remember that hiring those gangs (Not deserters!) did not cost any honor.  As long as you had negative reputation (honor) you could hire their entire group (A bunch of morths and always 1 bandit leader [one of best troops in game]) for like 50 denars max.  The dialogue will say 1000 or blah blah depending on party size but end result is 20-50 denars.  So it is absolutely worth it especially early game.

Once you have enough cash, build a lair.  Start storing high tier troops in it.  Dont worry about garrison as no one will ever attack it (TBH I REALLY wish this was change, where it would be attacked by a local militia, or a lord, or something.  it's illegal obviously)

Fire_and_Blood has expanded the functionality of the lair
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,314825.0.html

neat, but the siege thing, it only works when you turn it into a den, which turns you into a kingdom and your den into basically a castle.

Still cool though, will download.

 

[Phoenix VII]

The Denas and Franks are the only bandits that you need to avoid when possible and they're only really active in Mercia and southern England, so you can level up your troops fighting bandits elsewhere. Trading is lucrative as well, you can make alot of money buying silver, minerals, and stone from villages in Wales and then selling them in northwestern England so you can buy more high-tier mercs.

 

[sandoval]

the problem is that even if I fight weaker bandits (bagaudas are quite strong for beginners though), I still don't get any progress out of it. Because even when I defeat 20 bandits, I can't avoid loosing maybe 1 to 2 upgraded men, while not getting enough xp out of it to replace my losses. I'm constantly bleeding out.
Seems like trading and hiring mercs is really the only option.

Edit: started a new game. Hired 12 veteran warriors as my "go get things done force", and some frisians as light cavalry (thanks for the tip; their troop tree is missing in my game though). The rest are maybe 10 companions which I just drag along. It's going slightly better.

 

[Tocan]

recruit your prisoners! upgrading your troops in this mod is really hard.

 

[Ivan Khan]

the problem is that even if I fight weaker bandits (bagaudas are quite strong for beginners though), I still don't get any progress out of it. Because even when I defeat 20 bandits, I can't avoid loosing maybe 1 to 2 upgraded men, while not getting enough xp out of it to replace my losses. I'm constantly bleeding out.
Seems like trading and hiring mercs is really the only option.

Edit: started a new game. Hired 12 veteran warriors as my "go get things done force", and some frisians as light cavalry (thanks for the tip; their troop tree is missing in my game though). The rest are maybe 10 companions which I just drag along. It's going slightly better.

Be very picky on attacking bandits etc. I do not attack them unless there is something I can get that is worthwhile. Attack a group of 10 or less bandits with good prisoners. Now, if you lose one or two it is not a big deal as you gained 4-5. If they have no prisoners or just farmers or other low level troops pass them by. And, as Tocan says recruit prisoners. Moral is pretty easy to boost in Brytnwalda.

 

[MickDick]

I would say, if you do not want to take my dishonorable advice, you could do some tournaments to get your renown up to at least where you can carry 100 troops.

Then just recruit a bunch of peasants, and attack small packs of dena pirates in auto-calc.

This will gaurantee you prisoners and loot.  loot that's very valuable and can be sold for more peasants and the strongest troop in the game that you can recruit.  (Do not think i am being dramatic, get a hundred dena pirates and you can roflstomp anyone a few times.)