Midgame kinda stopped being fun.

[Boar Champion]

1. How do I make back the money that my army costs?
Selling loot and prisoners from huge battles dosen't seem to work. Tournaments give like 1000 gold and are unreliable. I am at a total of 5000 army cost PER DAY.
2. Is there an easier way to grind influence?
3. How do I get fiefs from my king? I am usually not even in the vote. currently there are no homeless clans. I took one castle ALL BY MYSELF and still some rando got it.

I really regret not taking the "conquer rebelling city" route. I wonder if I should just start a lot of wars with my last bit of influence and leave the kingdom.
This game turned from a fun battle and tournament sim into some logistic nightmare unpaid job.

 

[Boar Champion]

I also found a bug where you can form an army with your companion, select "donate troops", donate a lot of troops which earns you renown, then get into a conversation with the companion, select inspect troops and get the troops back. This could be abused for infinite renown.
But I don't like bugusing and cheating.

 

[fragonard]

Smithing, smithing, smithing. 100K custom orders and 35-40K crafted weapons.

 

[Boar Champion]

Smithing, smithing, smithing. 100K custom orders and 35-40K crafted weapons.

But everyone says that's an exploit.
What is the intended way to do this?

 

[Cochus1]

Maybe it's just that your army is too large, money should act as a limiter for clans (both AI and player). The more troops you have, the harder it will be to pay them (as in real life). You have here 3 options:

- Be always at war and spend all your time killing and looting everything in Calradia.
- Build an economic empire which allows you to pay your big army.
- Disband some troops until you need them.

I find the first one bored and stressful in the long so I usually pick the third option.

 

[fragonard]

But everyone says that's an exploit.
What is the intended way to do this?

Who's everyone? It's part of the game, especially since the devs changed the unlocks from rng to tiers. No exploit, it's a grind the game gives you.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

1. How do I make back the money that my army costs?
Selling loot and prisoners from huge battles dosen't seem to work. Tournaments give like 1000 gold and are unreliable. I am at a total of 5000 army cost PER DAY.
2. Is there an easier way to grind influence?
3. How do I get fiefs from my king? I am usually not even in the vote. currently there are no homeless clans. I took one castle ALL BY MYSELF and still some rando got it.

I really regret not taking the "conquer rebelling city" route. I wonder if I should just start a lot of wars with my last bit of influence and leave the kingdom.
This game turned from a fun battle and tournament sim into some logistic nightmare unpaid job.

That's why a lot of people quit around this time lol; the nature of the game fundamentally changes. Battles become fewer (at some point you're only manually fighting epic major ones and auto-ing the rest) while managing numbers becomes the heart of what you do. It basically becomes more of a proper strategy game like Nobunaga's Ambition or something and less of a tactics-focused game.

1: Taxes, battle loot, and workshops. Caravans are a no-go because they're mostly likely going to get wrecked whenever there's a war going on. Taxes vary wildly dependng on the quality of fiefs, but a rule of thumb is that they can support ~2-300 soldiers before going into the red when lower quality (like, less than 3,000 Prosperity) and up to, I dunno, a thousand when very high quality (10,000 Prosperity). Workshops usually provide around 100 denars per day, and my best luck is just buying the local workshops without changing them since changing them usually results in either oversaturation of the market or resources being too scarce and thus a net negative in another way. Not enough for a large army but every bit helps. Battle loot from large enemies (like hundreds of enemies defeat) can net anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of denars (and more if the enemy's mostly high tier troops) so boldly hunting for wayward enemies is a very profitable business in exchange for the inherent risk of losing troops and even acquired loot if you're defeated before liquidating it in time.

2: By ignoring it. As a vassal, you don't need much Influence so just bottle it up as you fight battles and passively accrue it. Really, as a vassal, you'll never be able to spend more than 200 for a "quadruple vote" per issue anyway, and gathering a large Army costs around a couple hundred as well, so it's really more of an issue for monarchs than vassals.

3: There's a mathematical formula for it, and it goes something like this (in order of priority): Homeless + Proximity + Clan Military Strength + Conqueror + Ruler + Player divided by Total Clan Prosperity equals your numeric value in being one of the tree voting options.

In other words, once you have a fief, your best shot is to take fiefs adjacent to it. If you don't have a fief, you're effectively guaranteed one. To prevent clans from having TOO much territory, total clan prosperity makes it so proximity only takes you/others so far but... that can be a while. Furthermore, being both conqueror and human gives you a marked advantage as well.

Trying to conquer rebel cities is no easy feat; you'd be trading the slow grind to power for a very high risk one that, while potentially much faster, could just result in you being stomped very quickly--unless you never formally establish a country, since I hear being an independent clan is basically an exploit since nobody will ever declare war on you, but if you don't like the idea of exploiting the game I can't recommend it, so the "hardcore way" would be to fight everybody around you and try not to go broke or get dead (for real dead) in the process.

 

[Boar Champion]

That's why a lot of people quit around this time lol; the nature of the game fundamentally changes. Battles become fewer (at some point you're only manually fighting epic major ones and auto-ing the rest) while managing numbers becomes the heart of what you do. It basically becomes more of a proper strategy game like Nobunaga's Ambition or something and less of a tactics-focused game.

1: Taxes, battle loot, and workshops. Caravans are a no-go because they're mostly likely going to get wrecked whenever there's a war going on. Taxes vary wildly dependng on the quality of fiefs, but a rule of thumb is that they can support ~2-300 soldiers before going into the red when lower quality (like, less than 3,000 Prosperity) and up to, I dunno, a thousand when very high quality (10,000 Prosperity). Workshops usually provide around 100 denars per day, and my best luck is just buying the local workshops without changing them since changing them usually results in either oversaturation of the market or resources being too scarce and thus a net negative in another way. Not enough for a large army but every bit helps. Battle loot from large enemies (like hundreds of enemies defeat) can net anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of denars (and more if the enemy's mostly high tier troops) so boldly hunting for wayward enemies is a very profitable business in exchange for the inherent risk of losing troops and even acquired loot if you're defeated before liquidating it in time.

2: By ignoring it. As a vassal, you don't need much Influence so just bottle it up as you fight battles and passively accrue it. Really, as a vassal, you'll never be able to spend more than 200 for a "quadruple vote" per issue anyway, and gathering a large Army costs around a couple hundred as well, so it's really more of an issue for monarchs than vassals.

3: There's a mathematical formula for it, and it goes something like this (in order of priority): Homeless + Proximity + Clan Military Strength + Conqueror + Ruler + Player divided by Total Clan Prosperity equals your numeric value in being one of the tree voting options.

In other words, once you have a fief, your best shot is to take fiefs adjacent to it. If you don't have a fief, you're effectively guaranteed one. To prevent clans from having TOO much territory, total clan prosperity makes it so proximity only takes you/others so far but... that can be a while. Furthermore, being both conqueror and human gives you a marked advantage as well.

Trying to conquer rebel cities is no easy feat; you'd be trading the slow grind to power for a very high risk one that, while potentially much faster, could just result in you being stomped very quickly--unless you never formally establish a country, since I hear being an independent clan is basically an exploit since nobody will ever declare war on you, but if you don't like the idea of exploiting the game I can't recommend it, so the "hardcore way" would be to fight everybody around you and try not to go broke or get dead (for real dead) in the process.

Proximity?
Proximity to me or my other fiefs?
The problem is that all fiefs adjacent to mine already belong to Vlnadians. I don't think, there is a way to help the enemies capture the fief to capture it back afterwards and win trough proximity. And will having a bigger armyhelp me win fiefs?

I thought with a lot of influence, I could kick out other clans to steal their fiefs, or at least making it more likely for me to get the next fief (less competitors). Then I wanted to start war with everyone before I leave the country wartorn, making it easier to steal fiefs.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

Proximity?
Proximity to me or my other fiefs?
The problem is that all fiefs adjacent to mine already belong to Vlnadians. I don't think, there is a way to help the enemies capture the fief to capture it back afterwards and win trough proximity. And will having a bigger armyhelp me win fiefs?

I thought with a lot of influence, I could kick out other clans to steal their fiefs, or at least making it more likely for me to get the next fief (less competitors). Then I wanted to start war with everyone before I leave the country wartorn, making it easier to steal fiefs.

Proximity to your own fiefs, and since yours is "landlocked" (for lack of a better word), I'd say you're in trouble with only a few ways out; A, donate your fief so you're first on the ballot to get the next (ideally one that's near a corner of Calradia but also other lands you could own); B, wait for your neighbors to get so big that you're back on again (a bad idea for one who intends to rebel, but it does happen eventually, which is why my own fiefdoms in my own country are disconnected, like I have most of the Aserai cities but later was voted to have half of Vlandia by my vassals); C, defect to an enemy kingdom (Vlandia must be at war with them to do it "smoothly"), or D, sabotage your own side's war effort (like by calling armies just to prevent them from rescuing lands nearby yours) to put them on the docket again. EDIT: Do you mind telling me the name and location of your fief? It's not a bad idea to keep it and try to be a "bad friend" or even defector if it's a securable city like Revyl or Rovalt or something, but if it's someplace like Lageta then it's really undesirable without it being just one of many in the region due to being horrid for defensive purposes.

That's more for rulers to steal their vassals lands than for vassals to really get anywhere, since democracy will out-vote you most of the time on any issue that isn't contested/controversial. Maybe it was easier to exploit Kingdom policies in this manner in previous/Early Access versions of the game (I'm no expert and I'm a newbie too) but it definitely isn't now lol.

Remember to keep flexible and be prepared to wing it; I ended up declaring independence from Battania in the Nahasa Desert (the whole Western Empire and Vlandia between Battania's homelands and their "colonies" by the way) not necessarily because I was ready (though I figured I was close enough) but because they enacted Debasement of the Currency which induces a -2 Loyalty penalty, which could have cost me my two cities if I stayed, so good luck and bad luck might force your hand.

 

[Boar Champion]

I've got Sargot and I am very proud of it, as it seems to be the "Capital" of Vlandia. I've already made myself comfortable there and spent 25000 gold on upgrading the walls (they started at lowest level for me), aswell as installing A LOT of garrision and hoarding my collection of hogs there, so I would ideally like to keep it.
All bordering locations are Vlandian territory.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

Vlandia's capital (in gameplay terms) is actually Galend, though in Warband it'd shift to Pravend (but that's irrelevant here).

Sargot's a good city but not the best; my advice would be to consider one of three options (ranging from requiring most patience to pay off to most high-risk);

1: Wait for your eastern neighbors to lose their territories. Actively sabotage their structural integrity by depriving them of reinforcements. Do not fight any country neighboring this area unless they poke around Sargot. To assist in their degradation, I'd recommend not contributing to Vlandian war efforts in general since they're "not your problem." Focus on traveling Calradia as a merchant trader, do tournaments, train up rookies, recruit far-off soldiers that are really hard to get around Vlandia (like Khuzait Noble Sons), etc.

2: Defect to an enemy country, like Aserai, Sturgia, or the Western Empire, and (assuming they don't have homeless clans) prove your changed loyalties by besieging your western neighbors (it's okay if you're landlocked; it actually makes securing fiefs for yourself easier), ideally conquering your way to Galend so you own most of southern Vlandia.

3: Cut your losses and give up Sargot for a new city elsewhere, like Quyaz in the Nahasa Desert or Omor in the Sturgian Wilds (I think that's what it's called, one of the villages' profiles tells you the woodland area's name).

Of the lot, I think 2 is the most ballsy without being the most painful whereas 1 is the safest but requires the most patience. Your Sargot can continue to develop during this process (I recommend things that raise passive loyalty gains, food, and Influence most of all) unmolested. Your villages in particular will develop into very profitable things (potentially moreso than Sargot itself) since Hearth number represents economic productivity (and taxes!). I don't recommend 3 since, frankly, I wouldn't do it lol, just too painful, that's a worst case scenario at best!

Alternatively, you could just remain loyal to Vlandia and genuinely assist them in unification, with the intent of positioning yourself as a potential successor to the current king (your odds are proportional to your clan's relative power) or simply being a good homie. You might find Vlandia easier to secede from when it's big, bloated, and the enemy of the world, especially if you have a bunch of choice cities and castles at that point. It's also possible to (exploit?) murder friendly NPCs by shooting them (any missile weapon) during battles with a 2% success rate, or by murdering them during prison breakouts (you can stage this by bringing in your king into an army, making it so it's basically just you and him, and then playing the long game in prison where you hopefully break out first before breaking back in to "help." Extremely risky but a fast way to murder somebody).

 

[JunKeteer]

1. How do I make back the money that my army costs?
Selling loot and prisoners from huge battles dosen't seem to work. Tournaments give like 1000 gold and are unreliable. I am at a total of 5000 army cost PER DAY.

Tournaments only worth it based on the reward. You should be earning more than enough from defeating smaller parties since large battles are mostly split out with the rest unless you do like 50% of the fight or more. 5000/d party is nearing somewhere like 200+ elites or something - even with wage perks?
That should be able to roll through almost any other encounter of like 500>, and by then - honestly, the game sh/would've given you loads of towns/garrisons already.
Garrisons also don't have to be maxed/unlimited wage - especially if you only have the single one, no caravans, no workshops.

2. Is there an easier way to grind influence?

Battles and policies (and fiefs), no other 'easier' way; and those are 'easy' and plentiful.

3. How do I get fiefs from my king? I am usually not even in the vote. currently there are no homeless clans. I took one castle ALL BY MYSELF and still some rando got it.

Wait for a war, you should get the first fief or next one that gets conquered; then usually you end up getting all the adjacent ones too. Apparently, if you participate and get a lot of casualties in the siege, it weighs more to you (?). Also, weird how you're not getting any, considering you have a 5000/d party unless you're just twiddling your thumbs on the map.

I really regret not taking the "conquer rebelling city" route. I wonder if I should just start a lot of wars with my last bit of influence and leave the kingdom.
This game turned from a fun battle and tournament sim into some logistic nightmare unpaid job.

Welcome to the issues of BL since EA ~3 years ago!

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

Tournaments only worth it based on the reward. You should be earning more than enough from defeating smaller parties since large battles are mostly split out with the rest unless you do like 50% of the fight or more.

You can "kill steal" by simply being present with a huge army; like, if you have 500 troops and rescue a friendly group of 100 from 200, you'll get 50+% of the loot as of the latest main patch; this makes keeping a large army pretty profitable, although even 25% of the loot is huge when it's your army of 2,000 (of which your group is ~25%) auto-beating enemies numbering from 500-1,000. Actual contribution to winning is only part of the calculation; proportion of the winning side also determines loot percentage gained.

 

[JunKeteer]

You can "kill steal" by simply being present with a huge army; like, if you have 500 troops and rescue a friendly group of 100 from 200, you'll get 50+% of the loot as of the latest main patch; this makes keeping a large army pretty profitable, although even 25% of the loot is huge when it's your army of 2,000 (of which your group is ~25%) auto-beating enemies numbering from 500-1,000. Actual contribution to winning is only part of the calculation; proportion of the winning side also determines loot percentage gained.

What I was saying, the better% ratio you're 'helping' in a battle, the more loot you get, and the recent loot changes they implemented made it much easier to maintain an army from just loot alone - or slingshot your wealth once you add any other means with that.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

What I was saying, the better% ratio you're 'helping' in a battle, the more loot you get, and the recent loot changes they implemented made it much easier to maintain an army from just loot alone - or slingshot your wealth once you add any other means with that.

I see. Sorry for the confusion, it was just phrased in a way that didn't make sense to me. Regardless, I hope it's clear to topic creator and anybody else looking up for info that battles can really pay the bills in a pinch (and in general).

 

[Boar Champion]

I have a fighting force of 477 and 5 unique characters. On average my troops are of medium quality, not Elites.
96 Cavalery
157 Artillery
216 Infantry
25 Horse archers.
My character can hold a maximum of 148 troops. The rest are garision for my town.

And I still don't appear in the Vote for the castle right next to mine, but the guy with 2 other castles and the guy with a faraway castle DO make it into the vote. And I did helpin the sieges.

 

[mangalore]

Your army expenses sound pretty big for someone having no kingdom or multiple cities. I am late game and my main party of 380 elites is at a bit more than 5000 denars.

Only keep low tier units as garrison. Dismiss everyone expensive or take them into your party. The wages also go 2->3->5->8>12 so from tier 3 onward is alot more expensive than tier 1-2 when considering numbers. I usually keep garrison at tier 2 so I have some specialized archers and the infantry guys have shields. That already ups their efficiency for battle tremendously to add meat to your army. Your own party is what should have a hard core of elites. Still it may be worthwhile to limit yourself to 50 elites and not upgrade people just because you can. Leave them in the wings to replace losses and increase your elite core only with your income.

That said, shape your army around your budget and when in doubt your party beats garrison every time.

Also if you want to stick with Sargot, get workshops there. 100-200 denars a day can pay a good chunk of your garrison.

I would also disagree on the caravans. If your problem is Vlandia being too peaceful they can actually be worthwhile.

Also the worthwhile thing about tournaments aren't the bets, but the victory prize. That can be 5000-10000 (particularly noble mounts). Sell them.

Overall however ponder what you want to do. You can still ditch Vlandia and seek a more action filled kingdom. You can also start your independence war (but your should be able to have a stable companion army of 500+ and money to pay yourself out of wars) or be more aggressive when a war happens. Wars usually pay for themselves so if you say your loot does not suffice, fight more equal battles alone. Battles should rake you in tens of thousands of denars with the ceiling being town merchant budgets, prisoners can regularly end up ín the thousands as ransom as well.

Also a smaller but faster force (more cavalry heavy) may be needed so you can hunt down enemy lords and caravans. Also makes a pretty penny and fighting outside a large army gives you more pieces of the cake.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

I have a fighting force of 477 and 5 unique characters. On average my troops are of medium quality, not Elites.
96 Cavalery
157 Artillery
216 Infantry
25 Horse archers.
My character can hold a maximum of 148 troops. The rest are garision for my town.

And I still don't appear in the Vote for the castle right next to mine, but the guy with 2 other castles and the guy with a faraway castle DO make it into the vote. And I did helpin the sieges.

That's not a fighting force of 477, that's a garrison of 477 minus 148 and a fighting force of 148! I say this because your troop limit is still low; while my approximate unit size of 400 at the time of secession (note: this INCLUDES 2 policies which effectively grant +80 troop limit for freee, so my pre-monarch limit was around 320) and I can't be sure what the "suggested minimum" is (especially since it's only on PS4 where rendered troops per round is 350 rather than 1,000), I can say it helps to be a one-unit small army that outnumbers anything that isn't a formal enemy army.

But, yeah, your strength is still too small to do something as crazy as secede and hold your ground or otherwise take on all of Vlandia on your own, so biding your time is highly recommended. Leveling Steward and Leadership (Steward can be gotten through a companion quatermaster though) will each give around +80 troop limit by the time they're capped, and elevating your clan tier is about +15 each time unless I'm mistaken.

I don't recommend staffing your troops with too many high tier units though--not yet, at least, since the point of that is to have. a reserve army since they're very expensive--but I do recommend mass-recruiting Vlandian recruits and other tier 1s and tier 2s to fill in the capacity so that Sargot is practically un-attackable for the A.I. unless they have 2,000+ troops at the bare minimum.

The guy with two other castles is probably closer (and maybe poorer in fief prosperity) and helping doesn't contribute to your chances--being the allied commander is what designates you as the "conqueror." Even so, I'm tempted to recommend you prepare to defect so that you're #1 on the docket for pretty much any fief around you, especially Charas and Jaculan, since cities are usually where the real money's at and castles are mainly just useful as pit stops to store noble prisoners, maybe garrison reserve troops, and give away to promoted companions (an action that requires 50 Influence and 25,000 denars if I'm not mistaken, so you can't do it immediately after creating your own country). They do project your power though, and by that I mean it'd make you more likely to get Ortysia and Lageta, but...

Yeah, I think you should grind enemies and tournament prizes for money and defect to one of Vlandia's enemies since the real prizes are to your west, not your east, both in terms of effort to reward ratio and sustainability if you choose to go independent. Otherwise you're probably going to have to wait for all the little castles near Sargot to get captured before you can claim one for yourself, and it's really just a stepping stone to clam Ortysia, though once you have Ortysia it might not be a terrible idea to try to expand south into the Nahasa Desert... but it is a terrible idea to have a territory that's "too wide" since the time it takes to go from one end of it to the other will cost you dearly in multi-front wars.



mangalore:

Your army expenses sound pretty big for someone having no kingdom or multiple cities. I am late game and my main party of 380 elites is at a bit more than 5000 denars.

Only keep low tier units as garrison. Dismiss everyone expensive or take them into your party. The wages also go 2->3->5->8>12 so from tier 3 onward is alot more expensive than tier 1-2 when considering numbers. I usually keep garrison at tier 2 so I have some specialized archers and the infantry guys have shields. That already ups their efficiency for battle tremendously to add meat to your army. Your own party is what should have a hard core of elites. Still it may be worthwhile to limit yourself to 50 elites and not upgrade people just because you can. Leave them in the wings to replace losses and increase your elite core only with your income.

That said, shape your army around your budget and when in doubt your party beats garrison every time.

Although it's good to moderate garrison size normally, he's planning to use Sargot as a staging ground for a rebellion, which means it needs to be large enough that only a mega-huge army would dare attack it and be capable of reconstituting his own unit if he's ever defeated in battle (a very real probability with only 150 troops on his person) and high tier troops, especially if they aren't native to the region, are worth quite a bit in terms of time and opportunity costs since it's not a quick and easy manner to take low tiers and max them out (until you can command an absolute horde of them lol, but that's LATE late game), especially if you're in Vlandia and want elite horse archers from the Khuzaits or something like that.

I'd recommend going crazy with battles to have millions in reserve before adding on to these expenses, however, (except I'd recommend increasing expenses by ~500-1,000 denars per day by capping Sargot with bottom tier units for the purposes of padding it out), since that'll help in the short term. Then, before going independent, Boar Champion could start funding 4 parties (a crazy expensive thing to do, I'll point out to him/her now) so they can run around Vlandia recruiting troops before merging with his own unit to go attacking cities when he goes independent (or defects--which is practically the same thing in the short term, except aided by the nobles of your new country). Good opportunity to win over the Vlandian nobility with a capture-and-release policy as well lol.

mangalore:

Also if you want to stick with Sargot, get workshops there. 100-200 denars a day can pay a good chunk of your garrison.

I would also disagree on the caravans. If your problem is Vlandia being too peaceful they can actually be worthwhile.

Also the worthwhile thing about tournaments aren't the bets, but the victory prize. That can be 5000-10000 (particularly noble mounts). Sell them.

Overall however ponder what you want to do. You can still ditch Vlandia and seek a more action filled kingdom. You can also start your independence war (but your should be able to have a stable companion army of 500+ and money to pay yourself out of wars) or be more aggressive when a war happens. Wars usually pay for themselves so if you say your loot does not suffice, fight more equal battles alone. Battles should rake you in tens of thousands of denars with the ceiling being town merchant budgets, prisoners can regularly end up ín the thousands as ransom as well.

Also a smaller but faster force (more cavalry heavy) may be needed so you can hunt down enemy lords and caravans. Also makes a pretty penny and fighting outside a large army gives you more pieces of the cake.

Not sure if it's good to have all your workshops in one city, but it might hurt if they're different at least!

Caravans can cost upwards of 40,000 to form and can cost many thousands per day trying to reconstitute after a raid; I'm uncertain most peace times last long enough to recoup the losses so it's hard to recommend outside of special circumstances, like your only enemy is the Aserai and you're in the same region as them while everybody doesn't care for years on end.

And noble mounts/armors/weapons can sell from 20,000-50,000, so I doubly push your recommendation. You can tell if it's worth your time by checking it's tier; Tier 6 mounts/weapons/armors are usually in this range while Tier 5 tends to be in the thousands. I can't be bothered to grind anything less in value after the early game, so I won't recommend you do it either.

I don't think Prisoners are worth lugging around for chump change; instead I'd recommend keeping top tier unit prisoners since they can easily become "reserve troops" in effect after a while.

War can make bank, for sure, but I caution trying to go independent with merely 500+ troops, especially in a region like Vlandia where an army of 2,000 is the norm and a second one is likely on the way. Better go for ~1,000 on your own and try to resort to siege defenses for the huge enemy armies and using villages as traps to ambush enemy units who can outrun you, I think.

 

[mangalore]

My considerations are peace time maintenance and how to solve your money problem then. Caravans and workshops can cover peace time expenses well. Workshops you plainly have different types so they can average each other out. Caravans are not 40k but half that and in limited war they will not be destroyed that quickly. In comparison to high tier equipment for yourself and companions caravans and workshops are really cheap anyway.

To think about rebellion you must have a good profit margin with whatever money you make because for independence you should have a million or so in the bank so you can buy yourself peace fast and one or two clans to switch sides. Lastly army sizes are campaign dependent. 2000 sounds weirdly much. Barely face that late game ever (aka as an established kingdom against peer adversaries) in various campaigns over the years. Norm is 600-1000 and if you are lucky every AI lord idiot creates and army and you get to drown 300-400 men puppies.

Big armies also lose cohesion faster so waiting for them to break apart becomes viable and inversely if you start a war you best try to smash up the enemy before they concentrate aka you should try to be aggressive and not just wait for the king to gather everyone and walk up to your gates.


Until then you don't need reserves of high tier units. These are fix costs on your tight budget not making you profit until you can think about rebellion. In the same vein storing exotic units you don't use. Yes, you can do that... when you have no money problems anymore. And I'd rather have the elites in my companion parties to begin with. The sharper your edge at the start the less it matters if you face 2:1 or worse odds.

Also with battles and good leadership perks upgrading units gets really fast and high tier units are less likely to die outright to begin with.

With prisoners I usually don't recruit for roleplaying purposes so I sell them. Better than lugging them around or them clogging up dungeons if you don't use them. Particularly with allied lords donating they can be a good piggy bank you may have forgotten about. if you want to use them be selective in what you keep. I am more worried in having their recruitment drop army morale which affects my travel speed.

inversely releasing lords should be considered on how the war goes, If you can buy yourself a peace fast it does not hurt. If you need to grind the enemy down first it does because imprisoned (and equally executed) lords are the defining index of how much manpower potential you destroyed, not the casualties inflicted.

@BoardChampion: One remaining money trail is trading. Not sure if you started out as a trader but if you keep trading on the side aka you just buy and sell as you march along with your army you can also have plenty income if you build up your trader skills. Though you need a good deal of investment as you are not a fast profit seeking caravan but just buy cheap and when your army happens to get to a city where things are profitable to sell you do that. So quite some money can be bound in goods at a time.
Still, that is actually an avenue to make money while building an army and not at war. Easily a couple of thousand in profit at every other town you stop by.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

My considerations are peace time maintenance and how to solve your money problem then. Caravans and workshops can cover peace time expenses well. Workshops you plainly have different types so they can average each other out. Caravans are not 40k but half that and in limited war they will not be destroyed that quickly. In comparison to high tier equipment for yourself and companions caravans and workshops are really cheap anyway.

Gear are one-time costs whereas caravans can be recurring and the cost of setting them up depends on if you want the basic guards or the elites, and since I prefer to be cautious, I'm paying for elites because I got screwed when I didn't during my first playthrough lol. And you can't be certain how long peace will last, and where your country is located almost certainly affects the viability of caravans since a safe corner is vastly preferable to a contested midland. I'm not sure what Vlandia would qualify as compared to Aserai...

To think about rebellion you must have a good profit margin with whatever money you make because for independence you should have a million or so in the bank so you can buy yourself peace fast and one or two clans to switch sides. Lastly army sizes are campaign dependent. 2000 sounds weirdly much. Barely face that late game ever (aka as an established kingdom against peer adversaries) in various campaigns over the years. Norm is 600-1000 and if you are lucky every AI lord idiot creates and army and you get to drown 300-400 men puppies.

Maybe RNG, maybe playthrough lengths, maybe PS4 weirdness, but I'm quite used to Vlandia rolling in with huge armies since they were roughly the size of themselves + Battania + a few extra territories and by the time things got serious, Calradia was largely ruled by 3 major countries besides my own; Vlandia, Western Empire, and Southern Empire, and they were likewise the biggest armies (especially Vlandia). You can't be sure they won't organized a large army and go straight for (Sargot in Boar Champion's case) so you gotta prepare for it since if you don't, you're screwed.

Although money's the bottom line, I think the opportunity and time cost of recruiting exotic troops is worth the financial drain in keeping them, especially if you aren't that good at battles yet and find God laughing at your tactics more than you'd like lol, and it's likewise sound to maintain a backup army because it'd be very risky to presume effective invulnerability/100% wins. Just one loss can force you to reconstitute your army--a very dangerous thing when you're outnumbered and isolated.

When operating on a deficit, I find the best may to make ends meet is to defeat lots of enemies, but this is difficult when seceding since your markets are likely to be limited and aiding and abetting your present faction could make future revolution hard. That's one reason why I'd consider defection; you'd have a new country to act as your political and martial safety net while being able to grind Vlandian retinues for money. Otherwise, I'd encourage Vlandia to wage war with distant enemies purely because it'd not really help Vlandia while enriching yourself in the process. Like, for example, a pointless war with (if they exist) the Northern Empire, Khuzaits, Southern Empire, etc.

Big armies also lose cohesion faster so waiting for them to break apart becomes viable and inversely if you start a war you best try to smash up the enemy before they concentrate aka you should try to be aggressive and not just wait for the king to gather everyone and walk up to your gates.

Cohesion is restored by spending Influence, and I've seldom been able to "trick" an enemy army into dissolving via cohesion depletion so I can't recommend gambling on this without a failsafe. Furthermore, you can't be that aggressive if you're being hit on multiple fronts and it's generally a safe bet the enemy will congregate where you're most vulnerable. Basically... I'd recommend aggression more when you're secure, not when you're insecure.

Also with battles and good leadership perks upgrading units gets really fast and high tier units are less likely to die outright to begin with.

With prisoners I usually don't recruit for roleplaying purposes so I sell them. Better than lugging them around or them clogging up dungeons if you don't use them. Particularly with allied lords donating they can be a good piggy bank you may have forgotten about. if you want to use them be selective in what you keep. I am more worried in having their recruitment drop army morale which affects my travel speed.

inversely releasing lords should be considered on how the war goes, If you can buy yourself a peace fast it does not hurt. If you need to grind the enemy down first it does because imprisoned (and equally executed) lords are the defining index of how much manpower potential you destroyed, not the casualties inflicted.

I dunno, having 80 Elite Cataphracts and similarly large numbers of Khan's Guads, Banner Knights, Fian Champions, etc. in my retinue's jail just gradually being recruited by me (and just accumulating willing joiners when I don't need them) is a very effective late-game preservation strategy (just don't lose them or you'll have to fight them lol) and if you're a big guy with 400-500 troops, you ain't gonna be that fast to begin with lol. RP-wise, it makes sense people would be willing to join you after spending an eternity in your police car or... just abstract "why" in your head since there's numerous believable reasons lol.

I usually sell non-top tier prisoners but, since they often make chump change (or take up space and movement speed) I just don't bother (except early on to recruit warhorse-riding units, like Vlandian Gallants or Druzhinniks)

@BoardChampion: One remaining money trail is trading. Not sure if you started out as a trader but if you keep trading on the side aka you just buy and sell as you march along with your army you can also have plenty income if you build up your trader skills. Though you need a good deal of investment as you are not a fast profit seeking caravan but just buy cheap and when your army happens to get to a city where things are profitable to sell you do that. So quite some money can be bound in goods at a time.
Still, that is actually an avenue to make money while building an army and not at war. Easily a couple of thousand in profit at every other town you stop by.

Of course; trading should be something you do pretty much all the time. By the time I've got hundreds of troops in my party, I'm lugging around cheaply bought food as a form of "stocks" that I sell pretty much constantly. Especially late-late game where it became common to see hundreds of Grain being sold for merely 6 denars each in Epicrotea and be sellable fo 20 denars each towards the battlelines further east. That's an uncommonly huge profit margin in the first 30 years of play, but the margins only got bigger during my first playthrough while some kind of inflation appeared to take place with regards to values and prices (ultimately making wages cheaper as a factor, I should mention, since wages don't go up from their base costs). The basic routine when traveling is to check out tournaments, conduct trading, and identify quests appropriate to your desires (like Escort Merchant Caravan for grinding XP while being paid enough to partially cover retinue costs at the same time, or Destroy Bandit Base to grind up lower tier troops and named characters' Athletics while also increasing regional popularity and Charm, etc.).