Lord behavior

[Warpath]

I'm quite puzzled with how the lords in my kingdom see fit to follow my orders. When asking one to call all lords for a new campaign,  after 1 week of staying in the same place nobody came to me. Plenty of my lords running around but none seemed interested in reporting to me or something. So i decide best thing to do is to take a trip around my kingdom and ask all the lords i meet to follow me. After getting like 10 of them of which only like 6 actually managed to keep up with me to the target town , rest got distracted by small bands , i start the siege. To my surprise like 3 more suddenly just leave ( they had traveling as their current action, so following some random small army is not the case) and head for their home castles. What is up with that ? Is there any way to keep the bastards in line or to actually start a campaign ?

 

[Mad Vader]

Apart from the easily distracted lords that go off and chase bandits, some may have small parties and suddenly decide to go home and wait for their parties to get reinforced.
Lords with sizable parties are more reliable, give the others some time to reinforce before leading them on a campaign (bench them until they get fit).

 

[ermine]

I usually take 4 Lords with me which I beef up to parties of +/-300, it takes between 1-3mth (depending on what sort of prisoner trains are around ). Those Lords are my fieldarmy, normally coming from near to my own estates. The rest of my lords is free, sometimes send to raid areas etc . 4 Lords are easy to handle and due to their speed (because of a large party), they don t follow that much smaller groups. I usually just have my companions and my knighthood order with me, to keep costs low, whilst still being decisive in battle.

 

[pchefkent]

Hi

I have a question regarding reinforcing lords. If I have lords with no fiefs yet( I got them when the fierdsvain were destroyed) and are just hanging out at some lords castle or my towns, can I give them troops? Also if I give my own lords troops in their castles will it go automatically to the garrison or will it go to their party?

 

[noosers]

I am not sure about this wether the troop goes directly to any lord or sticks in a castle garrison if you give him troops in a castle and wether he keeps them or drops them off once he visits his stronghold - I haven´t resupplied them often and usually it´s not necessary. Just keep them rich and fat and lazy and they´ll get huge armies.

And you can always try it out yourself with a little 1 refugee experiment. None cares about them buggers and everyone´s glad if they´re off towards the neighbour.

Yes, you can give them troops but the AI needs to stay in a location in order to get an army again. The quality and amount of their resupplies and starting resupply army depends on their actual wealth which is the reason why town-lords will finally field better quality and larger quantity armies than a one poor village lord will do.

 

[Qnevven Zolond]

you can give troops to your lords by talking to them (i think it's second or third option)

When lords are resting/recruiting in a castle or town giving them troops will instead open a window where you can trasfer troops into garrison of that castle/town even if they were not the owner of it - so don't do it while in castle/towns.

If you want to give them troops directly you need to ask them to follow you, leave the castle/town and then talk with that lord on the map view.
After you have given them some reinforcements you can either say you no longer need him or give him some orders if he has enough troops already.

 

[Warpath]

Do lords upgrade units ? I mean if i give some dude 100 Ravenstern Warders ( prisoners i rescued/upgraded from archers ) will he upgrade them into rangers  eventually ?

 

[noosers]

If they live long enough, yes, they will. Lords gather XP once per week (when they get their reinforcements). I don´t know if they get any XP if they participate in a fight. I, at least, haven´t noticed such a thing in the various hours of MnB yet, but it could as well have slipped my observation as anything else.

Upgrading though is totally random so a e.g Pendor Recruit may become a skirmisher and the next one a milita. There´s no way to influence the decision and lords usually screw up. If you want to be sure they acquire a certain type of trooper, pick one up high enough so the upgrade path won´t split anymore and you´ll be alright pimping your lords armies.

 

[Qnevven Zolond]

lords do gain experience
many times i've captured a lord that has "+" next to his name indicating he is ready for upgrade...
but i am not sure if they ever upgrade into higher levels