Recruiting Guide?

[Lord Irontoe]

I've been playing Silverstag (.26) for the last few days now and I'm really liking it a lot, but the recruiting system is pretty confusing. Is there a comprehensive guide anywhere on how it all works? I've done a bit of googling, but could only find partial answers in random posts here and there.

Even the wiki is lacking. There's detailed pages on Garrison Recruiting and everything I could ever want to know about how a village's Recruitment Rating is calculated, but nothing that I could find that would explain to a new player how to go about building an army.

From what I can gather, as long as I meet the requirements, I can recruit low tier Peasant Recruit troops anywhere. Then I need to level them up to at least tier 5. Then I need to disband them in a center, where they become available Veteran Recruits. Now I can recruit them again as high tier Veteran Recruit troops. Is that correct?


I'd like to add a few suggestions that might make it seem less confusing:

1. Come up with a good comprehensive guide that explains how to build up a strong army and get the best units and put that in the Game Concepts notes page

2. Add a simple explanation right in the recruiting interface. It could be a tooltip or a button that opens a new page.

3. Change the name of the second tier upgrade to something other than "veteran".  Its confusing if I know that I need to disband veteran units to get high-tier troops, then I go and disband all my Veteran Militia and just get a bunch more peasants. Maybe call them "Seasoned" or "Expert" or something.

4. Change the word "Dismiss" in the recruiting page to "Promote" or something that doesn't sound like you're throwing good troops away.

5. Maybe have a small number of Veteran recruits already available in towns to make it easier to get started.

Out of all of the very impressive features this mod has to offer, I'd say that the recruiting system is the most distinctive, and probably also the one most likely to put off potential players since its so different from how every other mod does it. So I think it would greatly help to make it feel as intuitive as possible.

 

[zapbib]

page

1. Come up with a good comprehensive guide that explains how to build up a strong army and get the best units and put that in the Game Concepts notes page

Theres only three type of units, peasant, veteran and mercenary, it doesnt take a whole guide to explain how to get them ( ill do in this post). There might be some balance problem because there are so many troop type but this is an ongoing development. I'm personnaly waiting for the next stable version to try my hand at making my own troop tree.

2. Add a simple explanation right in the recruiting interface. It could be a tooltip or a button that opens a new page.

Its a good suggestion, but the forum is the wrong place to write it, follow the link to post suggestion in a place windy can organize them

3. Change the name of the second tier upgrade to something other than "veteran".  Its confusing if I know that I need to disband veteran units to get high-tier troops, then I go and disband all my Veteran Militia and just get a bunch more peasants. Maybe call them "Seasoned" or "Expert" or something.

There's a mod option (I think in the camp menu) to change the naming convention. My favorite is a simple "+" or "++" to denote upgraded level.

4. Change the word "Dismiss" in the recruiting page to "Promote" or something that doesn't sound like you're throwing good troops away.

But you are dismissing, not promoting. If anything you can dismiss a tier 4 guy and hire a tier 1 in exchange. All you are doing is putting back a man in the man pool.

5. Maybe have a small number of Veteran recruits already available in towns to make it easier to get started.

If you win a tournament you get some veteran recruit. They aren't really needed, since you can pretty much destroy everything with tier 4 unit (and it's probably more cost effective right now.)

Ok, troop guide
Ressources
To hire a troop in a center you require the appropriate resource int he center
There is 4 type of troop resources: -peasant,
                                                        -veteran,
                                                        -mercenary
                                                        -horse which are quite different.
If you go in the reference material menu and click on the troop tree menu you get all the information you need.
Each troop as a recruit type field: it state what resource is required to hire it, and what kind of resource it gives when dismissed. Generally Tier 4 and lower are peasant, tier 5 and up are veteran. Mercenary can be of any tier. If a troop use a horse, it need a horse to be recruited and gives a horse to the center when dismissed.

Centers will create peasant, mercenary and horse slowly over time. The speed depends on improvement to the center and on prosperity. Veteran recruit can only be obtained by dismissing in the center a troop that has it as a resource or by winning tournaments.

Recruitment condition and location
Troop choice is not geography bound but faction bound. Any swadian owned center allow swadian recruitment. Village only allow tier 1 or 2 recruitment while castle and cities allow the full range of units. You can dismiss any unit anywhere, but if you dismiss a veteran or mercenary unit in a village you wont have any option to hire them back.
If you go back to the troop tree, you will allow see color coding:
    -Black troop can be recruited in any faction center
    -Blue troop can only be recruited if you are affiliated to the faction (as a mercenary or a lord)
    -Yellow troop have specific condition, written in the bottom left corner if you are looking at their stats and inventory. Either a specific location, honor rating, friendliness with a center, etc.
Example
The swadian men at arm is  a Tier 4 cavalry unit, it require a peasant recruit and a horse and can be recruited in any castle or town owned by the Swadian. If it is dismissed, it gives back to the center a peasant and a horse. If you upgrade your men at arm by gaining experience you get a Men at arm + (or veteran men at arm) which is a tier 5 cavalry unit that require a veteran and a horse. You cannot directly recruit a men at arm+, but if you dismiss him you get a veteran recruit and a horse in the center.

A fast way to get a lot of veteran recruit is to stack a lot of tier 4 units and level them to the next tier through experience, then dismiss them to get veterans. It is however super expensive, as it require to pay the tier 4 unit price and the upgrade cost. On top of that you will need to pay the price of the veteran unit you wanna hire.
Alternate way are to rescue prisoners (if you roam around the slave mine you can intercept prisoner convoy) or to hire captured ennemies.

This is however kinda moot, as the easiest way to stomp all opposition is to stack good tier 4 units and never upgrade them. You could mix in a couple veteran unit that gives good bonus if you want, but you don't need an entire army of veteran (it's in fact not cost effective at all).

 

[Leifdin]

Recruit T4 units.

On a side note: I am done with school (for now, at least). Which means that as soon as I manage to find my dev files I'll get back to work.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

Spoiler

page

1. Come up with a good comprehensive guide that explains how to build up a strong army and get the best units and put that in the Game Concepts notes page

Theres only three type of units, peasant, veteran and mercenary, it doesnt take a whole guide to explain how to get them ( ill do in this post). There might be some balance problem because there are so many troop type but this is an ongoing development. I'm personnaly waiting for the next stable version to try my hand at making my own troop tree.

2. Add a simple explanation right in the recruiting interface. It could be a tooltip or a button that opens a new page.

Its a good suggestion, but the forum is the wrong place to write it, follow the link to post suggestion in a place windy can organize them

3. Change the name of the second tier upgrade to something other than "veteran".  Its confusing if I know that I need to disband veteran units to get high-tier troops, then I go and disband all my Veteran Militia and just get a bunch more peasants. Maybe call them "Seasoned" or "Expert" or something.

There's a mod option (I think in the camp menu) to change the naming convention. My favorite is a simple "+" or "++" to denote upgraded level.

4. Change the word "Dismiss" in the recruiting page to "Promote" or something that doesn't sound like you're throwing good troops away.

But you are dismissing, not promoting. If anything you can dismiss a tier 4 guy and hire a tier 1 in exchange. All you are doing is putting back a man in the man pool.

5. Maybe have a small number of Veteran recruits already available in towns to make it easier to get started.

If you win a tournament you get some veteran recruit. They aren't really needed, since you can pretty much destroy everything with tier 4 unit (and it's probably more cost effective right now.)

Ok, troop guide
Ressources
To hire a troop in a center you require the appropriate resource int he center
There is 4 type of troop resources: -peasant,
                                                        -veteran,
                                                        -mercenary
                                                        -horse which are quite different.
If you go in the reference material menu and click on the troop tree menu you get all the information you need.
Each troop as a recruit type field: it state what resource is required to hire it, and what kind of resource it gives when dismissed. Generally Tier 4 and lower are peasant, tier 5 and up are veteran. Mercenary can be of any tier. If a troop use a horse, it need a horse to be recruited and gives a horse to the center when dismissed.

Centers will create peasant, mercenary and horse slowly over time. The speed depends on improvement to the center and on prosperity. Veteran recruit can only be obtained by dismissing in the center a troop that has it as a resource or by winning tournaments.

Recruitment condition and location
Troop choice is not geography bound but faction bound. Any swadian owned center allow swadian recruitment. Village only allow tier 1 or 2 recruitment while castle and cities allow the full range of units. You can dismiss any unit anywhere, but if you dismiss a veteran or mercenary unit in a village you wont have any option to hire them back.
If you go back to the troop tree, you will allow see color coding:
    -Black troop can be recruited in any faction center
    -Blue troop can only be recruited if you are affiliated to the faction (as a mercenary or a lord)
    -Yellow troop have specific condition, written in the bottom left corner if you are looking at their stats and inventory. Either a specific location, honor rating, friendliness with a center, etc.
Example
The swadian men at arm is  a Tier 4 cavalry unit, it require a peasant recruit and a horse and can be recruited in any castle or town owned by the Swadian. If it is dismissed, it gives back to the center a peasant and a horse. If you upgrade your men at arm by gaining experience you get a Men at arm + (or veteran men at arm) which is a tier 5 cavalry unit that require a veteran and a horse. You cannot directly recruit a men at arm+, but if you dismiss him you get a veteran recruit and a horse in the center.

A fast way to get a lot of veteran recruit is to stack a lot of tier 4 units and level them to the next tier through experience, then dismiss them to get veterans. It is however super expensive, as it require to pay the tier 4 unit price and the upgrade cost. On top of that you will need to pay the price of the veteran unit you wanna hire.
Alternate way are to rescue prisoners (if you roam around the slave mine you can intercept prisoner convoy) or to hire captured ennemies.

This is however kinda moot, as the easiest way to stomp all opposition is to stack good tier 4 units and never upgrade them. You could mix in a couple veteran unit that gives good bonus if you want, but you don't need an entire army of veteran (it's in fact not cost effective at all).

Thanks for the reply. That's about the level of detail I meant by "comprehensive guide", so thank you for writing that out. I was actually able to figure a lot of this out on my own by reading a lot of stray comments here and there, but its good to see a coherent explanation. Its not that intuitive for someone unfamiliar with the system so I was surprised that there was no ready explanation of it, especially considering how well-documented the rest of Silverstag's unique features are.

*edit* Added a suggestion ticket to the Assembla site

 

[zapbib]

Well, if it interest anyone, I could polish the small "guide" i did, and then someone could copy paste it into one of the pinned thread.

 

[Benedict the Mourningstar]

zapbab I think that your guide should be added to the Silverstag wiki, I found it very helpful - I did not realize that your T4 upgraded troops were Veterans or that you could dismiss them and hire back Veterans. That changes the ball game for me so thanks!

 

[zapbib]

Sure, ill work on that when I come back from vacation