Leadership overrated?

[Khalim]

Well, my experience with higher level/game development is quite limited, but I wonder if the skill leadership is necessery to have a positiv net income in the late game, where you own several and GARRISONED castles. And as the tax efficiency goes down, leadership might be a topic.

Personally, I think only the reducing wages bonus is useful.
The maximal troop size can easily be compensated with renown, okay maybe not easily but it can
The moral impact of this skill is quite big, but I wonder if buying different food can make this up.

What do you think as a pro?
Is leadership that important? Are there situations in the late game where a high leadership is needed for survial?^^

PS.: Personally I do not like big armies as they slow me down quite a lot.

 

[diavel]

I usually use half of party limit with elite units. Money are not a problem in M&B - there are plenty of villages to milk.

 

[Orion]

I also dislike carting around large parties. Instead I prefer to take a relatively small group of recruits, train them up at the ever-so-popular Training Grounds, and once I get them up to the third tier (maybe 4th if I'm Nord), I start getting into fights with other parties. Usually Sea Raiders since my latest game is Nord, but as Khergits I purposefully avoid steppe bandits and instead venture towards Swadian/Rhodok lands to find Mountain Bandits. Once I've either gotten bored or ranked up my troops at least once more, I'll go stash them in a castle and start again.

That's assuming I've got the time, anyway. If my liege wants to go on a campaign, I'll grab a sizable group of higher-tier soldiers from my castle and go with him. If I feel like doing a siege on my own, I'll grab a much larger group and go for it. Right now I've got about 80 Nord Veterans, 50 Nord Warriors, and 60-some other Nord troops in my castle. Those guys are expensive when you carry them around with you, and they're still expensive sitting in the castle.

I don't tend to make high charisma characters, so my leadership is at 3 (with charisma at 9). I can take almost all of my veterans and warriors with me at once, though, due to renown (I've got about 15 troops left over). What sucks is that I haven't been able to train more troops because I have to run around raiding caravans like a mad-ass fiend to cover the costs.

So, moral of the story (tl;dr):

High leadership is only good for lower wages. Party size can be increased effectively enough through renown.

 

[Boduar]

I enjoy the extra ~50ish soldiers I get from leadership/charisma that goes with it.  Wage cuts are definitely nice and of course the morale bonus is mostly to offset the additional soldiers.  Basically I dont see any other skills really worth getting over leadership so thats why I usually get it at least to 9 or 10 off the bat then go into fighting skills and leave party skills for my 1 or 2 other companions that are int buffs.  Basically leadership isnt amazing but I think its certainly better than any alternatives.

 

[Khalim]

yeah you are right, compared with fighting skills, charisma/leadership is quite good. But I decided to play a skill-devouring archer because it makes more fun

But a siege crossbowman with a little bit profiency and max charisma/leadership has also a good killrate.

Int 15 is for me for every character a must have as you can read all the books and give +2 boni and good backups.
Sometimes I wonder if Int 6 would also do a good job.

Yeah, I really like the skillsystem as it is VERY DIFFICULT to find an optimum

currently I am starting new games over and over again, just because a new idea of character creation, which might be better and more joyable,  comes to my mind

 

[Kellick]

Like Khalim said, siege crossbow and a big army to hide behind and you can rack up the kills. The great thing about it is you don't even need to put skillpoints into it to be effective. Just grab yourself one and a stack of steel bolts or 3 your next siege or even field battle, hide behind your infantry and start shooting. The skill goes up quickly on it's own (unlike archery or throwing which I definitly recommend putting points into if you are serious about using them). I got the idea from my favorite aar, Me, Floris and while I am certainly not as good a player as he is (I have to play on normal ai and reload saves if I am not cheating or I get my ass beat) I have been using the same character template and it works very well for me.

Before that I mostly played as an archer, which was fun, I was quite deadly with my warbow once I got my skill up around 200 but then dumping points into powerdraw and horse archery takes away from other skills you might have. I have also tried being a huscarl myself (skipped riding for athletics, put a lot into shield, powerthrow, powerstrike goes without saying...geared myself up like one and fought in the shieldwall beside my nord troops) and that was also a lot of fun.

When I started playing this game I was frustrated by the lack of any real good starter guides (unnofficial players manual wasn't even started) or templates presented but having played a bit I've found it is because it all comes down to what kind of a toon you want to play.

A lot of skills are situational so how much use you get out of them depends how often you find yourself in certain situations. The fact that you have a great deal of control over that allows you to tailor your character for your desired playstyle. Throwing and polearm and athletics for instance, pretty useful if you like to sneak into towns to rescue prisoners. If you like to fight in tourneys then all the combat skills are useful and you need basic proficiency in all of them because you will wind up getting stuck with all manner of weapons unless you stick to certain towns. I have found all the skills have thier uses but of course since you don't get enough points to have 30 in each stat and 10 in each skill you have to pick and choose.

That being said I think leadership is pretty useful for anyone, unless you are going to try to be a lone wanderer. Companion wages alone get out of hand pretty quickly, especially if they are mounted (and when aren't they?).

 

[Khalim]

Playing as a nerd^^ is quite effectiv in battle. I wonder how, because when I played a full Int character I also fight on horseback in melee and got good "one-hit-archerkills", what tells me, that the use of powerstrike is quite limited.

The reason of this might be the big impact of equipment in battle. And also low Weapon mastery allows you to go to efficient levels of profiency.  I wonder what profiency actually improves. Once I cheated to test it on bows, but there are little differences. Damages stayed the same, but accuracy and speed(slightly) improved.

The same with Xbows. At a certain point increasing accuracy does not give you an advantage, but though the reloadtime seems to be reduced, there is just a very small impact on it.

Melee I did not test so far, but I am curious if weapons get even more faster. As I know accurcy does not play a role in melee. Maybe damage is increased slightly?

Currently I think the only specialisazion in battle is archery which can not be mastered without powerdraw. But if you compare powerstrike 3-10 and weaponmastery 5->10 I think there is no world moving difference in the killrate
But riding of 10 is quite funny

 

[Kellick]

Playing as a nerd^^ is quite effectiv in battle. I wonder how, because when I played a full Int character I also fight on horseback in melee and got good "one-hit-archerkills", what tells me, that the use of powerstrike is quite limited.

The reason of this might be the big impact of equipment in battle. And also low Weapon mastery allows you to go to efficient levels of profiency.  I wonder what profiency actually improves. Once I cheated to test it on bows, but there are little differences. Damages stayed the same, but accuracy and speed(slightly) improved.

The same with Xbows. At a certain point increasing accuracy does not give you an advantage, but though the reloadtime seems to be reduced, there is just a very small impact on it.

Melee I did not test so far, but I am curious if weapons get even more faster. As I know accurcy does not play a role in melee. Maybe damage is increased slightly?

Currently I think the only specialisazion in battle is archery which can not be mastered without powerdraw. But if you compare powerstrike 3-10 and weaponmastery 5->10 I think there is no world moving difference in the killrate
But riding of 10 is quite funny

I've played around quite a bit with the cheats and also export/import to try out different things and see what kind of effects they have.
While sometimes the effects of things are somewhat subtle I haven't found any skill to be without use, let me tell you with 10 powerthrow and 460 throwing skill you can take out castle guards with a single thrown dagger (you can even break their shields in 2-3).
As far as powerstrike it is noticeable, at say 220  1-h skill I get a lot more 1 shot kills with 10 ps than I do with 4. Try fighting targets who are armored and using a slashing weapon.

Weaponskills seem to effect accuracy, speed and damage. I think it was stated somewhere that the way the damage is calculated the higher your weapon proficiency the more likely you are to do closer to your maximum potential damage. I am not sure exactly how it works with accuracy but I think it compensates for your crappy aim melee and ranged(well at least my crappy aim, while horseback with melee anyway). Now as an archer/sharpshooter I am pretty deadly once I get the toons skills to decent level but once again at 460 archery I was pulling off some pretty amazing longrange (such longrange that I had to aim so high the target wasn't on screen anymore and I get headshots)shots that there is no doubt in my mind that it is the effect of skill. Now once I could attribute to luck but I've done it repeatedly. Also some pretty longrange shots while riding at fullspeed.

Also melee speed I have noticed that it does increase your swingspeed. It is really noticeable against a higher end fighter, like dueling a lord. Try it with say 100 skill and then reload and try it again with 400 and see how much more forgiving the game is of your mistakes.

That being said, don't anyone think that you must max out your weapon proficiency and have 10 ps or you are missing out on something. You can be quite successful in combat with lower skills and even with that maxed out test character I call "Uberman" who had 30 in all stats, 10 in all skills and 460 in all weapons , full lordly plate, helm all that...doesn't make you invincible. I still heard Rhodok sharpshooters scream "BOOM! HEADSHOT!"

 

[manekemaan]

i always get my str agi and int to 12 so i can get a decent war bow and a war horse and i have enough skill points to cover em. (and some persuasion since that has become very important). Then i do my charisma to 27 and my leadership to 9 and than i read the life of alexinus the great. Serieusly, if you like knights you need maxed leadership.

 

[Baguette Eater]

Funny how i ride in Calradia with about 3 leaderhip 9 charisma and 80 knights 

 

[Grummen]

Playing as a nerd^^ is quite effectiv in battle. I wonder how, because when I played a full Int character I also fight on horseback in melee and got good "one-hit-archerkills", what tells me, that the use of powerstrike is quite limited.

The reason of this might be the big impact of equipment in battle. And also low Weapon mastery allows you to go to efficient levels of profiency.  I wonder what profiency actually improves. Once I cheated to test it on bows, but there are little differences. Damages stayed the same, but accuracy and speed(slightly) improved.

The same with Xbows. At a certain point increasing accuracy does not give you an advantage, but though the reloadtime seems to be reduced, there is just a very small impact on it.

Melee I did not test so far, but I am curious if weapons get even more faster. As I know accurcy does not play a role in melee. Maybe damage is increased slightly?

Currently I think the only specialisazion in battle is archery which can not be mastered without powerdraw. But if you compare powerstrike 3-10 and weaponmastery 5->10 I think there is no world moving difference in the killrate
But riding of 10 is quite funny

Yeah, one of my best/most successful experiments so far has been developing an Int-centric character. There are just so many useful skills for a leader to have at least some points in that it almost seems like you're short changing yourself taking any other route. I've also tried the Cha/leadership focused route, and it isn't too bad, either. It does have the advantage of getting you a larger army faster than you would relying purely on renown. It also allows you to develop your trade skill along side it, which doesn't hurt either, if you're into the whole trade scene. Still, after trying both methods, I'd say the Int path is much more viable, simply because you get a load of skill points to work with, and being able to cap out tactics, surgery, and persuasion can be a huge help.

 

[Seawied86]

Leadership is certainly not overrated.

Moral boost is huge, especially when at war with an enemy that has the same culture as your primary troops.

Wage cut allows for massive sized armies.

And the number of troops sounds small, but is actually quiet significant. With level 10 leadership, you have 77 troops, most of which you would not have got without going the leadership way.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

Troop limit increases are meaningless, you get, what, 1 free troop slot per 25 renown? And even with the diminishing returns in WB you can still keep your renown at around 2000 with relatively little effort. That's eighty free troop slots, for nothing. Plus the thirty or so that you get as your base party size, plus the odd five or so that you get just because you can't start with zero charisma. That's a decent sized army already, without a single skill point spent on leadership.

 

[Weathereye]

I found it hard to keep morale up without having to fight every critter (hard to do if you are slow) and 10 kinds of food in inventory (need to invest into inventory management) when my army size grew over 100.  And I had 10 leadership.  So I don't think I could manage without.  I like to keep morale excellent for the map speed increase.

Also, the high charisma allows for 10 in Trade skill and along with wage cuts you became rich (sooner) and you can buy lordly and masterwork gear for your companions as well in no time.  There is no better deal.

 

[Gufnork]

If you've got a full party at 2000 renown and little to no leadership then your morale will be in the toilet, even with a full assortment of food (which is rather annoying to keep up). It's also expensive as heck. My favorite build is an int/cha based character (int for training, inventory management and persuasion plus the extra skill points, charisma for the leader skills and trade). Use a lance in field combat (who needs powerstrike when your jousting lance deals over 100 damage without it?) and siege crossbow in sieges. I recommend starting as a lady-in-waiting or a steppe nomad to get riding 4 so you can get a horse that doesn't die on you though.

Horse archer is nice as a change, you're more useful in combat, but worthless outside of it. You also need to make a companion a dedicated trader, which is pretty much a wasted companion.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

I've never had trouble maintaining morale and paying for the army. Probably because I do like to fight every critter I come across, and with an all-cavalry army and massive investment into pathfinding I have no problem catching anything I set my eyes on. Yeah, I do have to keep an assortment of food, but so what? What else are you going to use your inventory space for anyway? Trade goods? Towns rarely have enough worthwhile goods to fill even the base inventory space. Spare ammo? The ammo refill bug takes care of that. Loot? Even with a companion dedicated to the looting skill there's hardly more than a dozen items that are worth even picking up after even a major battle, the vast majority of it is worthless garbage.
I don't have a problem with dedicating a companion to trade, either. Since you can equip your companions yourself, you can give them the heaviest horses, armors, and weapons available, which turns them into tanks even with relatively low stats. I've found that 12 str and agi is more than enough for my guys to be more effective than Swadian knights. Those guys have 16 str but still only 4 power strike, and the 4 extra strength points they have don't make a whole lot of difference, especially when your guys can use heavier two-handed weapons with more reach. And you can get to 12 str and agi relatively quickly and then focus on developing other skills, int or cha based.
For the same reason, I see no point in putting points into trainer on your own character. There's plenty of companions who have a lot more skill points than they know what to do with.
Buying masterwork equipment for companions is a massive waste of money, IMO, the difference between 50 and 52 armor isn't that great to justify the hugely inflated price. Heavy chargers, on the other hand, are a must.

 

[Gufnork]

A 150 man army chews through food reserves like it's nobodys business and many food sources are hard to come by. During many wars my army lives mostly on grain and bread, especially during offensive campaigns. I don't know how much of a problem it is though, since I've never come close to 2000 renown, especially not with low leadership. I haven't survived to get more than 900 I think and that guy had leadership 7. This probably gives me a skewed view since I spend a lot more time in the startup phase than most people.

 

[Weathereye]

Trade skill also helps to lower the time to collect taxes for lords and assess prices. 

You also need to make a companion a dedicated trader, which is pretty much a wasted companion.

I can only agree with that.  It makes perfect sense to raise CHA for the player character because both Trade and Leadership can be raised then.  Plus you only need 27 CHA to get 10 skill points in Leadership and Trading with books.  Companion needs 30 CHA for 10 Trading.  And you get leader bonus +4.