rebuilding your army

[Jedidia]

I guess we've all been there: You're in the middle of a major campaign and you get your ass handed to you by Lord Whatshisname. You got to get an army together as fast as possible because your King is a whimp without you by his side, but if you just recruit some peasants and join the fray again the enemy will just whip the floor with your rookies.

So what's the best strategy to rebuild a capable army in the course of a week? I can't even really train them on forrest bandits. Although I usually win, the casualties are too large to build up a capable fighting force from what's left. Looters, which would be the best exercise, are usually hard to find. Hiring some 40+ mercenaries is too costly and might take a while to drum up too. What do you do in such situations?

 

[JosieJ]

I tend to give each of my companions as many points in Trainer as I can spare from their other abilities.  This helps level up new armies within several in-game days.  Towards the beginning of the game, before you (and your companions) have leveled up a lot, mercenaries are probably your best bet.  Also, keep an eye out for enemy armies with prisoners--recruiting rescued prisoners can sometimes make a big difference!

 

[blood of the North]

I tend to just hunt parties that have prisoners, to the extent that i'll gladly watch allies lose before stepping in and mopping up. 

 

[hidude123]

have a companion that has good train skill with him/her u should easily get tier 3 troops in a few days depending how many tier 1s u have. also waiting for Allies to die and then mop up to get a load of troops is also a good idea. also many mods have patrols so if u and some mace wielding companion go on capture them u can try and recruit them into your party too

 

[tobijah]

it is a (slow) process (because you have to do all the training yourself) but it saves time to get your troops at least to tier 2 when you train them at a training field

thus effectively making it so you can fight deserters and whatnot easier then before resulting in more experience

 

[TheOrangeToes]

Get a huge-ass army, have some companions with some points put into the Trainer Skill. An army of 70+ soldiers should get 3000+ experience per night.

 

[Lord Brutus]

Sounds to me like the OP has committed the sin of joining a faction before his character was high enough level to actually be useful and then gets his ass pounded.

 

[bladeconquest]

Passive training is your friend there. Investing into training skill for companions and your character is never a waste.
Also, if you have  a few villages at high relation, you will get upgraded troops (usually one tier higher than recruits).

 

[Jarl Jorg]

Personally, my strategy is preparation before hand.

First, one of my companions (Lezalit) is an incredible trainer with a skill of 10. In addition, all of my companions (and I) all have at least 1 or 2, and sometimes more) points in training as well. This means troops level extremely fast and over a few days I can have a modestly experienced army from a bunch of recruits. In addition within a week I can have almost a fully elite army depending on the type of troops I am training for (huscarls taking the most time). I have also found my troops level better just going from day to day with party training, rather than lots of combats (e.g. all recruits will level to militia with overnight training but only 1 or 2 out of 30 will level after a battle for me).

The second way I prepare is to use my down time during peace to create more trained troops and garrison them. This way when I need to get reinforcements during war I can just head to any of my properties and pickup a ton of fully trained troops. Having 1,235 garrisoned elite troops ready for war at a moment's notice can be very helpful at times (I currently have 447 Huscarls, 331 Vag Marksmen, 119 Vag Knights, 149 Nord Vet Archers, 148 Swad Knights, 21 Swad Sharp Shooters, and 20 Sward Sergeants spread out garrisoning 2 towns and 2 castles).

I hope that helps.

 

[callahan9119]

I guess we've all been there: You're in the middle of a major campaign and you get your ass handed to you by Lord Whatshisname. You got to get an army together as fast as possible because your King is a whimp without you by his side, but if you just recruit some peasants and join the fray again the enemy will just whip the floor with your rookies.

So what's the best strategy to rebuild a capable army in the course of a week? I can't even really train them on forrest bandits. Although I usually win, the casualties are too large to build up a capable fighting force from what's left. Looters, which would be the best exercise, are usually hard to find. Hiring some 40+ mercenaries is too costly and might take a while to drum up too. What do you do in such situations?

I had that problem, you need to get about 5 companions and put them in some ghetto chainmail type stuff at least with decent weapons and get some of them high in trainer skill, then maybe buy a merc group of horsemen, they can do the bulk of the killing and then you charge your newbs after the battle is under way. Also get that surgery skill up on yourself and others. If you're using the native troop tree they level up really fast. I'm using Floris mod and it takes ages to train them up high.

Really, I would just trade until you and your companions are about level 12-15 and you have about at least 80k saved up after investing in enterprises in at least about 6 cities.

 

[tobijah]

all in all I would say we all have many good ideas that work in their own way I suggest trying all of the above out (even more then one at a time) and seeing which one works for you Jedidia

 

[Swagg3r]

I agree with passive training. No matter how you feel about companions, nab as many as you can and invest in trainer skill. Even 10 companions with one trainer skill respectively will get you a competent army in a matter of days.

 

[Nikomakkos]

Yes, Training skill is definitely one of the most important skills.  I take as much of it as I can on my character, my fighting companions get as much of it as their Intelligence allows, and my party-skill companions (the ones that go 30 Intelligence) max it when they have maxed their party skills.

Until you have a good amount of Trainer skill, you can order your troops to hold position at spawning point while you and your companions go and kill the bandits/looters/deserters/whatever.  The troops will get some experience after the battle.

 

[Jedidia]

Thanks for all the answers 

Sounds to me like the OP has committed the sin of joining a faction before his character was high enough level to actually be useful and then gets his ass pounded.

Oh well, it's only my third game, with the first two being abandoned after irreconcilable errors. It's well possible that this one will suffer the same fait...

Also, if you have  a few villages at high relation, you will get upgraded troops (usually one tier higher than recruits).

That's nice to know!

I had that problem, you need to get about 5 companions and put them in some ghetto chainmail type stuff at least with decent weapons and get some of them high in trainer skill

I have quite a nice complement of companions, but I need to bail half of them out of jail to get them back... 

Really, I would just trade until you and your companions are about level 12-15 and you have about at least 80k saved up after investing in enterprises in at least about 6 cities.

Trade until level 12? I'm not very keen of the trading part, waiting that long to get in on the action might dampen my motivation to play the game a bit 

 

[JosieJ]

Really, I would just trade until you and your companions are about level 12-15 and you have about at least 80k saved up after investing in enterprises in at least about 6 cities.

Trade until level 12? I'm not very keen of the trading part, waiting that long to get in on the action might dampen my motivation to play the game a bit 

I tend to pair trading and leveling by fighting bandits.  If you trade iron and salt between Curaw, Wercheg & Rivacheg (only in version 1.134--they've nerfed it in patch 1.142), it'll take you right through Sea Raider territory.  Sea Raiders drop great stuff for equipping yourself and your companions with, plus they bring the highest ransoms out of the different types of bandits.  So you level up, get great equipment for free, and a nice ransom by turning in prisoners.  Plus, whatever profit on the goods you're carrying.  The denars--and xp--rack up quickly.

 

[callahan9119]

It's really for the best, I did it and the thing is you level up fighting bandits while you're trading. You should only take your companions and maybe a group of a dozen recruits or a group of mercs, that way you don't have a massive army that costs you money and makes you spread your experience thin.

I go from Suno (if it has cheap oil), then to Curaw (for iron), then to Nord lands to sell the Iron, I grab flax and fish in Sargoth and more fish in the top Nord place, then I head off to Tulga, where stop at cities along the way to sell what I've accumulated for the best price.

At Tulga I buy spice and head to Bariyye and buy salt there for cheap (which sells for big money in many places) then to Ahmerred for Iron, I then head to Shariz and back to Suno to repeat. You can fast travel by holding CTRL+spacebar and you will be fighting bandits along the way, getting experience, prisoners and loot (which means money)....pretty soon you will have enterprises everywhere, great equipment and a pile of money and hopefully a high enough trainer skill on your guys to raise a large force rather quickly.

This is with Floris expanded mod, the trade routes might be slightly different, and even more different if you downloaded that patch.

 

[TOA503]

Yeah like most people said about the lvling your companions trainer lvl, But I just get 3 - 4 companions and raise up their trainer, but I usually camp out by a castle or city with about 10 - 20 soldiers in my party (so I wont get attacked by huge group of enemies LOL) and let them level up for like 3 days then ill go out and start finding bandits or whatever and killin em, then hire some lower lvl troops and combine them.

 

[Dziadu_Swierznowski]

Actually tere is a good way to train troops in battle without heavy losses. You need to create separate group out of recruits and when fighting some bandits order them to stand ground in the very beginning. After more experienced troops take out some enemies, order them to retreat. Then send in the recruits. Stick with them on the back of charger and keep galloping like a madman through enemy ranks. That way they will spend their time sprawling in the mud, which will prevent them from beating your troops and will make them an easy target for all those farming tools wielded by your rookies