lords

[Ichon]

Does anyone know what influences how many men lords typically carry in their armies? I've recruited half a dozen lords to my side now and I've noticed some of them almost immediately were patrolling with 100+ troops while a couple never seemed to get more than 40. Is it influenced by the fiefs you give them or they have a certain unique level with no way to tell on the outside?

I have to rescue the little guys fairly often and their castles get sieged whereas the larger armies rarely need help.

2nd- do the lords continue generating men as troops from their starting nation? Since I choose Pendor culture I figured the new lords would have Pendor units but most of them are running around with Fiersdvain or Ravenstern units. The Serleon lords I recruited the only ones I've seen using mostly Pendor units.

 

[Ravenheild]

Maximum party size is heavily influenced by renown. Some lords have a massive lead on others in their renown.

 

[Mauibuilt]

Also the amount of fiefs your lord has seems to have some impact. I gave some Baron 4 villages and within 2 weeks gametime he was patrolling with a 170+ party size.

 

[Ravenheild]

I actually have gone beyond the use of lords in general (Excluding town sieges) because I am using over 150 fully upgraded Knights of the Raven Spear and around 50 other various honor troops.

 

[Ichon]

I am talking about when you declare independence and running your own kingdom it matters. If I didn't have lords to help every time I laid siege somewhere half the places I own would be laid siege by my enemies. The hours it takes to build siege tower would see me lose a couple castles so to expand the kingdom I have to use lords. I did check on some of the lords and the renown seems to vary between 1,000 to 2,200. So maybe renown is a good way to gauge. I have been giving the most loyal lords towns, middling lords castles, and the relative untested villages. The 2 lords with 2 castles and a town patrol with by far the largest armies so I think to get large armies pick high renown and give them 3-4 fiefs.

I did have a very fun siege... Fiersdvain gathered quite a large army while I was distracted trying to raise troops and capture Ravenstern and sieged a castle where I had left only 5 Dragon Knights and 8 Ravenstern Knights. 2 were left alive when I crossed the siege lines and the Fierdsvain host was around 1,500. vs my 160. 3 attacks later they down to 500 and I was able to leave the walls and fight open field since most left were weak troops though alot of Valkyries. Of the 9 lords in the battle only captured 1!!! lol They are escape artists.

Anyone know about the castle ladies? Is it just something nothing can be done about? I noticed most of the places I am capturing has a lady in residence... apparently independent of her husband who still is loyal to an enemy king.

 

[hgghg4]

I have restarted so many times because once you get an Army of 200+ Insanely powerful Honor Troops even the 1000+ Armies run away like scared little school girls from the man in the van...

 

[Ichon]

Why put all 200 honor troops in an army? I am going around with 25 honor troops and my NPC at top of list then another 30 of the best culture troops I can get(usually Ravenstern Ranger or Sarleon/Ravenstern Knights right now. Rest of the army is trainees which when I get them 1 level below top I garrison. I have core groups of 60 huscarls , Hero Adventurers and Immortals saved up for the tougher spawn battles but they stay in garrison most of the time. With battle sizer on 161 most battles I have only 1-5 killed in battles vs faction armies over 1,000. Right now most faction army over 150 still run to meet me in battle and draw in the littler armies with them. No reason to have 200 honor troops in one army unless you are fighting Wolfbode or a Noldor Warlords.

I made a rule of thumb where I don't make more honor troops than the honor I have. So my honor right now is 196 so I've made 98 honor troops though I think about 60 died in the early sieges when I was first expanding my kingdom and didn't want to spend time in sieges so I did fast assaults so only about 38 alive right now with 20 always in my army and the rest garrisoned in groups of 5 at various locations to help replace occasional losses.

 

[Khergit Kabob]

I can think of a reason for 200 honor troops: if you get knocked out too many times and it falls to the auto-resolve you need every advantage you can get.

I don't know if improving honor troops actually makes them perform better on auto-resolve, though.

 

[Ichon]

Well once you get low HP retreat behind your lines. Most times I get knocked out it is when my horses gets stopped be some other horse running in front and a couched lance takes me. Otherwise I think a few times been unhorsed in the middle of a mob but often I can back slowly and my shield and armor protect me until my NPC bodyguard gets in the way of enemeis and I mount a spare horse.


If you have companion with high first aid you shouldn't be getting knocked out that often and auto calc is terrible. It doesn't take improvements into account- simply % chance according to tier as I understand it. I am not sure in the case of sieges. I've used autocalc to defend in a siege and sometimes it beat back the assault with minimal loss other times the attackers completely wipe out all defenders with small losses so a siege seems more random than other battles.

If you want to use auto calc best is to have only a very few top level troops and massive mid levels. You'll lose many but odds will be in your favor with low replacement cost if you have decent training.

 

[Ravenheild]

I have 200 honor troops so I don't ever need to get backup in anything I do.

I own over 90% of the map and have a majority of the lords in the game. So garrisoning castles is rather low on my personal to do list so I can afford to carry around this many.  Usually I just go around harassing the crap out of any army I see on the map.  Also I generally don't get knocked out because I'm not an idiot and I don;t go charging into my enemies, I leave that for the 200 Honor troops.

Btw If i didn't mention I own my own kingdom and the first place I took was a castle near where you get the Raven Spear, where I stocked up on a tremendous amount of rangers and I just archered my way to owning it over a series of probably 20 assaults/battles.

 

[noosers]

It does. HP´s and levels are in the calculation formula and both are pretty high/increase for upgraded honor troops.

The only reason for 200 honor troops is you want to conquer all of Pendor fastly and burn your gazzillion denarii before the game turns over into negative numbers..

 

[hgghg4]

with my one account I have Knights of the Dawn and Rangers of the Clarion call... I have maybe 56 Units total just because of the sheer rape they instill regardless of who we fight

 

[Ravenheild]

It does. HP´s and levels are in the calculation formula and both are pretty high/increase for upgraded honor troops.

The only reason for 200 honor troops is you want to conquer all of Pendor fastly and burn your gazzillion denarii before the game turns over into negative numbers..

I didn't get them all at once or that many early on I am incredibly far into the game and I collect a tremendous amount in taxes.

 

[hgghg4]

In the game I have 200 Honor troops I can field an Army of around 760...

 

[Ichon]

So your renown is around 17,000 or something? Wow... what day is that? I never thought of playing that long. I am level 25 and control half of the map. I think in the time it takes to level to 30 the game will be over.

 

[noosers]

Depends on your style of play. As you play with huge battlesizes you won´t collect as much reknown as someone else who has to run it on 50 or standard 100. Reknown is gathered pretty easily though if you fight often and on your own. Screw those silly buggers called fellow Lords -they aren´t good for anything but arsewiping and handling a few villages you´re too lazy to look after

In my more devolped El-Loco game I´m around day 450, have conquered all of Fierdsvain and half of Ravenstern, got something like almost 6k reknown, 300 honor and own the prospering Javiksholm-Ansen Lodge-Valonbray and assorted villages triangle, won a good dozen of Lords and am around level 38. Still plenty of fighting to go but the game became boring so I expect to finish somewhere around 10k+ reknown. The game´s already so easy I could just east anything for dinner, if I cared too or wasn´t such a greedy miser and fielded a Horde of upgraded Knights of the Falcon instead of the total twoscore yellowish meat mincers that they are. Companions are close to level 30 and finally start to kick ass. Loot´s terrible in terms of top-notch stuff, but well, you can´t everything. I can easily pay my whole army out of my weekly revenues, so all the sold loot goes into my deep pockets.

The testgame I started with the looting 9 starting character was and is a way more fun So badly overpowered it´s just like cheating.

 

[Ichon]

I started with looting 5 and with the low agility and never passed that though party adds+2 so looting seems decent my first PoP game. Don't you need high trade to go along with high looting to make it worthwhile, or does the exceptional items looted make trade not as important?

I am about to start a new game right now trying out higher agility. Will get agility to 24 fast as possible with strength 12 and whatever left over to intel. Try to get all NPC early and focus their development as fighter with 1 specialization not fighting. No horses for anyone... just get pathfinding high as possible. Even 8 pathfinding almost 25% increase, from speed 5.0 to 6.25. See how that goes... will vassal as soon as possible- sometime near end of month 1 should be possible.

My first PoP game pc is currently level 28 with most of Fiersdvain, Serloen, and Ravenstern part of City States of Pendor.  Renown only 2,500 and honor 204. My pride is almost 400 skill in bow(384). 9 leadership lets me lead about 200 army which is more than I'll ever need far as I can tell. 150 is sufficient for every army I've seen in PoP so far. Though reduced troop cost and morale boost from leadership is nice. Plus I had 8 leadership at level 23 and being able to sack most castles on my own at relatively low level was fun. Towns required help from faction until I got access to honor troops.

 

[Khergit Kabob]

Most times I get knocked out it is when my horses gets stopped be some other horse running in front and a couched lance takes me.

Ahh, lance-in-the-back, an old classic.  Even the freshest-faced cadets from Young Noble Academy can get lucky with lance-in-the-back.
Axe-in-the-face is another story.  Enemy archers don't seem to be as prone to the lucky headshot, but that's probably because I'm more on my guard when somebody hauls out a bow.  But axe-in-the-face ... it's the axe you don't see that gets you ...

 

[hgghg4]

its even worse when a Broadhead Spear runs through the back of your face...