Noble Troop Availability

[Bramborough]

Noble line troops are offered by Powerful Landowners in villages. Not regular/influential landowners (note below). Not village headmen, whether powerful or not. Not any of the city notables.

That doesn't mean the powerful village landowners will always have noble-line troops. If the village is stripped bare, then the Powerful Landowners' slots start to repopulate with Tier 1 recruits just like everyone else's. Only when given enough time to develop above Tier 1 will the noble troops appear. (The implication here is that, along with a host of other problems, Bannerlord's constant factional warfare and quick-escaping AI lords are a core contributor to scarcity of recruitable noble-line troops. They're not sucking up all the noble troops, but rather sucking up all the T1 recruits before they can even become noble-line troops).

I haven't counted specifically, but given the number of notables per village/city, and the ratio of villages to cities, a ballpark-estimate of maybe 5-10% of all troop-providing NPCs are eligible to offer noble-line troops (at game start).

(note: there is one rare/minor exception to the Powerful Landowner rule. A Landowner NPC can offer noble-line troops at Influence 200. The tooltip label doesn't change from "Influential" to "Powerful", however, until Influence above 200. So if the guy has exactly 200 Influence, that's the one case I've seen where an Influential Landowner can offer noble troops).

All the above based on observation over 220+ hours of gameplay.

 

[ThirdHorseman]

Noble line troops are offered only by some notables. It might or might not be tied to "influence" rating of the notable, as I saw noble troops been offered only by the very influential notables. If it is tied to the influence, then certain notables might start offer noble troops over time and some other might stop.

In any case, if you want to recruit more noble troops, check which notables offer them, write it down and then try to raise relations with them to unlock more slots.

Or raise your leadership and get Disciplinarian perk. It will let you upgrade bandits in to noble troops. Forest bandits for example upgrade to Batanian noble line.

Or just transfer the Forest Bandits that need to be upgraded (greyed out without perk) to a party led by one of your companions. In a few days check that party and they will be upgraded. No need to get the perk, as the AI can upgrade them, no restrictions.

Worked as of 1.2.

 

[hruza]

Or just transfer the Forest Bandits that need to be upgraded (greyed out without perk) to a party led by one of your companions. In a few days check that party and they will be upgraded. No need to get the perk, as the AI can upgrade them, no restrictions.

Worked as of 1.2.

Didn't know that, thanks. But I would consider it exploit. Also companion parties have desertion problem due to the over recruitment bug. You may loose some bandits in the process. Although that might not be big deal.

 

[paladinx333]

The troops available for recruitment seems to be dependent on your level. You won't see any gallants in Vlandia at level one, but you will see them later on. If a village is recruited often you won't see anything but scrubs.

I think 1.1.0 changed the recruitment possiblities so that good troops simple aren't available that often. There was a noticeable difference going from 1.0.11 to 1.1.0.