Troop Training Questions, Starting Out

[Sporky]

Alright I've been playing this game quite a bit lately, and it takes me hundreds of days just to get a good income and group of troops together. I would really love if someone could tell me some good areas to find mob spawns I can train on earlier in game and help my troops progress faster, along with how many troops I should have in my party earlier on because usually I just recruit until maximum capacity and go around trying to chase mobs down, obviously that isn't working for me.

Also the problem of money comes up frequently for me, I'm going to try trading this playthrough and see if I can have more success with that. I don't know how that will go because for some reason the douchebag sarleon people attack me because my character started with negative 5 relation with them for some reason. I'm not sure why this happened, but I always seem to be getting attacked by those sarleons homos, and I will look forward to absolutely decimating them with the empire once I gather troops and some money together. (I'm looking to join the Empire if you haven't guessed yet.)

Anyway any words of wisdom are welcome, thanks!

 

[bishopbutters]

Talk to a Sarleon Lord, select "I wish to make peace with Sarleon"

-5 relation and no persuasion should cost you around 2-3k denars. Worth it to be able to trade effectly.

As for training first build an income base: \enterprises in every town. Then grab companions (Riva, Kassim, Julia, Adonja, Ansen are some of the lower level ones that won't cost much if anything). When they level up put all points into Intelligence and skillpoints into Training and whatever other skill you want (I go with path-finding and tatics)

Once you get the income and companions training shouldn't be to much of an issue.

Also you cannot pay for peace if you are a monarch. To bad for Sarleon in my playthrough. I converted Laria, Marleons, and Whitestag castle to me with no fighting and easily took both Valorshield and Haringoth Castles and they still don't want peace. I'd pay them but they just want to get crushed lol.

 

[Waldakoks]

You get -5 relations with sarleon when your father was a knight of an outlawed order.

EDIT: It is prety dumb though, that you get lion squire armor from your father, and sarleon who gets along well with the lions, dont like you, cuz you wear outlawed order armor. Fu***ng genius

 

[Sporky]

Talk to a Sarleon Lord, select "I wish to make peace with Sarleon"

-5 relation and no persuasion should cost you around 2-3k denars. Worth it to be able to trade effectly.

As for training first build an income base: \enterprises in every town. Then grab companions (Riva, Kassim, Julia, Adonja, Ansen are some of the lower level ones that won't cost much if anything). When they level up put all points into Intelligence and skillpoints into Training and whatever other skill you want (I go with path-finding and tatics)

Once you get the income and companions training shouldn't be to much of an issue.

Also you cannot pay for peace if you are a monarch. To bad for Sarleon in my playthrough. I converted Laria, Marleons, and Whitestag castle to me with no fighting and easily took both Valorshield and Haringoth Castles and they still don't want peace. I'd pay them but they just want to get crushed lol.

Are you saying I shouldn't even bother with troops until I get my companions together and stuff? I also don't even have 2-3k to buy my peace with Sarleon.

 

[bishopbutters]

Are you saying I shouldn't even bother with troops until I get my companions together and stuff? I also don't even have 2-3k to buy my peace with Sarleon.

No do bother with some troops, i am saying don't really worry to much about fielding an army before then.

Farm bandits and highwaymen until you feel more comfortable, then Dshar raiders, then once you have a party of around 40-50 good men farm the Jatu in auto-calc for prisoners and battle loot. Sell it all off at Laria or Poinsburk. Once you have enough money pay of Sarleon and use Laria as your slave selling outpost. Once you have enough start making enterprises in all the cities you can. Once you get a good cash flow going then go after your companions. It'll take awhil before your a fielding a formidable 150+ army.

As for training recruits up attack bandit spawns. Recruits don't need alot of xp to level anyway. Keep your party under 20-40 men otherwise you won't be able to outrun hostile knights.

 

[Sporky]

Can you specify a good area of the map to train against the lower level bandits or should I just wander around until I encounter some. Also I read in the prophesy of pendor guide that the empire was very weak against the jatu, will I take a lot of casualties auto-calc'ing then because of the empire's weakness towards them?

One more question regarding my empire army, what type of troops should I focus the most on getting?

 

[Rhox]

Been some time I haven't played this mod but if you start on the snowy faction and be a crossbowman, pick a fight with the bandits and tell your men to retreat then climb on a rock and solo the bandits

 

[Nierra]

Can you specify a good area of the map to train against the lower level bandits or should I just wander around until I encounter some. Also I read in the prophesy of pendor guide that the empire was very weak against the jatu, will I take a lot of casualties auto-calc'ing then because of the empire's weakness towards them?

One more question regarding my empire army, what type of troops should I focus the most on getting?

The best way to look for bandits are around Marleons methinks, since there's almost always a bandit hideout there that spawns forest bandits and highwaymen in large numbers.

As for troops, I think legioners with armored crossbowmen are the best, though, you can add some pikemen with gladiators as backup against enemy cavalry (I usually put them as different unit type, and put them right behind front infantry line - this way they're protected from missiles (since most of them usually lack shields), since infantry-legioners shield them and they'll stop most cavalry units right away. Oh, and empire armored crossbowmen is the best unit for besieging enemy castles, since it's more accurate at shooting, while most archer units miss too often, and deplete their arrows just too fast (well, ravenstern rangers, and elite type probably can be good too, but I still think that crossbowmen are better, since I usually take only 0-5 fatal casualties while taking enemy castles with them).

 

[Shingen]

I always start is Javiksholm. You can make a ton of Denars trading flax to Avendor. Train about 20 Feirdsvain infantry to tier 3 through sparring at the training center right next to Javisholm. That should take you about a week (game time).

Then you can start taking on Vaskerry raiders in small numbers, till you can afford some better mercs.

Every few days, check in Javiksholm and the villages nearby for cheap flax, and you'll be swimming in gold within the first month.

 

[Nierra]

Get yourself a castle, and suggest friendly lords retreating there with their captives. You'll have a lot of gold in no time. 

 

[lothario]

BTW: -5 relations costs 810 denars to fix -- not 2-3k.

The Marleons area always has a Bandit Hideout nearby... it's not always in the exact same place from game to game, but it's always near Marleons somewhere. Those bandit spawns patrolling neat the hideout will be scaled to the player's level, and are a good source of starting cash. Also, the lighter orange Mystmountain bandits are easy to kill at low levels, too. Avoid the darker orange ones at first, as they are full of myst warriors and shamans... a little tougher. The bonus to fighting myst bandits is that they almost always have peasant hostages that you can rescue and train into elite fighting units -- Pendor Troops or Maiden Adventurers can come from refugees, farmers, and peasant women.

-Loth

 

[Sporky]

Thanks for the help guys, I've been playing hardcore and got some good troops now, along with a like 5k to spare so I'm doing better than I was, I hope I can continue improving!

 

[Aetavicus]

Another easy way to play is to just join a faction as a mercenary right at the beginning and follow their main army around. Enter battles where your faction is winning and auto-calculate. Imprison the lord after the battle is over and immediately ransom him. Doing this repeatedly will give you a good amount of money to start recruiting companions and troops.

To train troops quickly, get the companions Sir Jocelyn, Sir Rayne and Donavan. They will train up your troops very quickly, especially Jocelyn.

 

[krisvk]

Why not wait and get more for ransoming(is that even a word?) the lords?

 

[Aetavicus]

You can keep repeating that action of course. However, I usually stop once I've set up all my enterprises and have gotten all my companions.

 

[Nierra]

Why not wait and get more for ransoming(is that even a word?) the lords?

If you're not the faction leader the war will probably end if you capture too many of them at once, and you'll lose them all with no ransom at this point.

 

[Aetavicus]

@Nierra I think there's a misunderstanding. I'm not talking about waiting for a ransom. Instead, you talk to the captured lord directly in your prisoner's screen and accept his payment in exchange for his freedom.

 

[Nierra]

@Nierra I think there's a misunderstanding. I'm not talking about waiting for a ransom. Instead, you talk to the captured lord directly in your prisoner's screen and accept his payment in exchange for his freedom.

They pay too low this way (except faction leaders). For example you can get about 15-18 thousands for a major lord (like Duke or so), while you get only about 5-7 thousands if you let him go just like that.

 

[Aetavicus]

Yes, but if you capture many lords, it will still be a sizable amount. And furthermore, you can avoid 3 problems which are having the lords escape either due to chance or the war ending and not having to wait a long time for the ransom.

 

[Nierra]

Well, it's a matter of tastes. Usually I release most of them after battle to gain some honor, and capture only faction leaders (since they cost lots of many and no chance they'll join you in the end) and those lords that gonna hate you even more after you release them.