Hard time to maintain my armies and research/extend stronghold at the same time

[eknarx]

I am playing for the first time. I started with the original campaign and went for a rightful/old faith regent. So far I made good progress. I am around turn 25 and in the second book and raised 2,5 complete armies (complete army = 16 units). Actually I don't really need that much troops at this point of the game. I do most of my fighting with one and the same hero/unit combination. While a second army is mostly idle.

But I am a little uneasy. I constantly run out of food in summer season and have a hard time saving money for improvements in my strongholds and research. Plus I have the feeling that the gold and food output of my provinces is very shifty. One midwinter a province delivers 8.000 food and in the next midwinter only 6.000. I don't change the province's liege or any of his artifacts.

What could that be?
- Is my army too large? As far as I can see my soldiers burn 10.000 food per season.
- Are my provinces affected by something? If so, I could not say what. I remove the rebellion quest stuff usually immediately. I read something about ghost armies that affect the productivity of the provinces, but can't find any indication about them.
- Am I simply too slow/fast and run asynchronous to the game's expected speed?
- Does the fact that my realm is at war affect the provinces productivity (there are no invading armies in the provinces)?

Something else is entirely unclear for me. What effect does the 'hungry soldiers' event have anyway? It does not affect the armies morality or prowess as far as I can see. Is it possible that the missing food of the previous year is immediately subtracted from my food account once I receive new food in midwinter?

 

[eknarx]

Nobody able to help me out here? Or did I explain my problem insufficient?

 

[vandewusel]

Well,
as somebody who is playing this since three weeks - i.e. not a "pro" - I can clearly state that at turn 25 you don't need 2.5 complete armies. In my first attempt I had too many units, too, although I was not facing heavy problems. I started new, because I messed up the Merlin quest by conquering Wales too early in the game.

I found that even later in the game, two full armies are enough, with one knight shifting around replacements. Focus on quality and not quantity. I have conquered everything except Wales and the easternmost provinces now. All with just two armies.
Also, horse units go heavy on the supplies. I usually have 4, sometimes 5 archer units. One knight unit and two cavalry units. Later , if you play Old Faith and you get the Sidhe Path spell, you can drop off the light cavalry.

Also, In your stronghold build the the food increasing structures first. Also research royal inspectors, to increase public safety in your provinces.

You definitely can manage the game until you conquer the stronghold with one single army only. It is also important to learn to master the tactical part of the game. Heavy losses eat up your food and gold. Even against very strong armies, I usually never loose more than some handful of men. Very often, I will have zero losses.

All the best!

 

[Mithelemir]

If you ever need a third army, then it should be only during end-game stages. Supporting two armies is expensive enough.
1) I highly advise having Warlords as your army leaders and investing in their Reign, Leadership, Seneshal skills...
2) Also equip them with leadership-enhancing items before the end of each turn, even if you were using some other items for battles.
3) Additionally, remember to assign your best liege knights to the provinces you conquer, so you can gather good income and food...
4) If you marry your knights to economy-able Ladies, then your income will increase even more.

Good luck!

 

[eknarx]

Thank you very much. You confirm my suspicions, that the amount of units is my problem. I kind of tried to get a hold of every unit the game offered me, while at the same time I could keep my battle attrition at minimum. But in the current phase of the game one army is doing all the jobs and the other is just standing by.

@vandewusel
You say you have 4-5 archers, 2 cavalary and 1 knight.
What about the rest? 3 heroes and the rest heavy infantry? Except for the Sentries I found little use for light infantry. Same applies for spearmen.

How do you deal with the army compositions from different factions. My army contains everything from Summer Born to Lionhearts and Giants to the Griffon Guys (can't remember the exact name). Would it make more sense to focus on a branch? How do you judge to keep exotic troops. To refill them you usually have to waste two seasons? If you get units from a trade or diplomatic quest do you disband them, if they don't fit into your army composition or raise your amount of units to much?

@Mithelemir
I did not focus on Reign and Leadership and these skills. I find it hard to find the right focus for a Warlord between his economic skills and his military skills. But I think that I did not skill Sir Kay optimally. He has Aloud of Arrows 2, the old faith poison spell 1 and the rest went into Masterful Tactician and its sub-skills. In combat he does not have enough mana to deploy all his battle skills. It is probably better to give him two battle skills and the rest economic skills.
The artifact switching I already mastered . And my provinces went to my best liege heroes, in that case I also focused a bit on reign, but they don't level fast enough.

You say that a third army could make sense in the end stage of the game. When would you recommend to start building up a second army? As I said above

Can somebody explain me the effects of the 'hungry soldiers' event that occurs when you run out of food?

 

[Mithelemir]

@Mithelemir
I did not focus on Reign and Leadership and these skills. I find it hard to find the right focus for a Warlord between his economic skills and his military skills. But I think that I did not skill Sir Kay optimally. He has Aloud of Arrows 2, the old faith poison spell 1 and the rest went into Masterful Tactician and its sub-skills. In combat he does not have enough mana to deploy all his battle skills. It is probably better to give him two battle skills and the rest economic skills.
The artifact switching I already mastered . And my provinces went to my best liege heroes, in that case I also focused a bit on reign, but they don't level fast enough.

You say that a third army could make sense in the end stage of the game. When would you recommend to start building up a second army? As I said above

Can somebody explain me the effects of the 'hungry soldiers' event that occurs when you run out of food?

I will give you a full set of answers to all your questions (with links to my army compositions etc.) within the next 12 hours. I will edit this post when I get back home. Sorry, that I don't have enough time right now. Since you are in Berlin, thus six hours ahead of my time zone, it will be late at night your time, so you can look forward to a good reading tomorrow morning.

All my best in the meantime.

P.S. I also play Old Faith/Righteous, so you will be able to relate to my comments directly.

 

[vandewusel]

@vandewusel
You say you have 4-5 archers, 2 cavalary and 1 knight.
What about the rest? 3 heroes and the rest heavy infantry? Except for the Sentries I found little use for light infantry. Same applies for spearmen.

Yes, ATM, I play with 4 heroes, to be honest. I like the use of magic. Actually, it is a bit overpowered, especially the Path of the Sidhe teleport spell. You can teleport to the victory points. Or teleport your heavy infantry/cavalry right into the enemy archers...

Light infantry I rarely use. I keep the Sentinels around however. Spearmen I also never use. However, Springborn are awesome. I hide them in the woods very often. They beat everything there. Now, combine this feature with the teleportation...

 

[Mithelemir]

As promised, here's are the basics of how I balance my economy (I play on Hard difficulty, fyi, in case my progression seems slow at first glance):
Let's start with turn 42, just as I seized Viroconium and Powys. At this stage (see pic below), my only Warlord is Sir Kay (not counting Lucan who, literally, just appeared) and, just like with your game, I have not invested in any skills other than combat-related abilities. My strong advice, at this stage, is to put some points into Masterful Tactics and back them up with Wedge and Wall of Steel (as seen in the picture):

Also, you can see the composition of Sir Kay's army. Sir Mark's (my other army) is right below as well:

As a side note, I find having 5-6 archer units extremely useful. In the most simple of scenarios, I clump the archers together on a forest or some other protective woodland hex, turn on Masterful Tactics, then unload, focusing my fire against a single enemy unit at a time. While I use my cavalry units for various forms of tactical forays, my heavy infantry mostly plays the role of archer shields (although, there are other, more involved uses as well), protecting the archers from encroaching enemy units.


Turns 42-80 were actually pretty tough (they tend to be so usually), for, having been lucky in acquisition of solid units, I found myself short on money to sustain them and to replenish armies after skirmishes...Consequently, my plan to seize provinces came to a near halt. A lot of time was spent dealing with various side quests and just saving enough gold to replenish my troops (nothing unusual at this stage of the game). However, I earned additional resources in several different ways:
1) I married off Sir Kay and King Mark to Ladies with Merchant trait, thus increasing my revenues:

2) I was able to research a number of economic improvements around the Stronghold as well as a few economic improvements, such as Royal Inspectors and Mine Shafts (in progress in pic below):

3) Since I picked up some particularly nice (and expensive units), I actually reduced both my armies to 15 units to lower upkeep costs:

4) Loaded my liege lords with all the leadership/reign items I could find. I agree with you that at this stage it is very hard to spend points on other skills than those war-related...So, I haven't yet.

On turn 82 I was finally able to wrap up all my side-quests, adequately replenish my armies and conquer East Mercia...Which led to the joining of Sir Bors who, together with his impressive Summerborn, completed both my army stacks (recall, I was operating at 15 units per stack for the past n<=40 turns):

This led to an immediate seizing of Logres...and, thus, a bit more financial/food surplus:
By turn 120 things looked as follows:

In the process, I picked up three excellent liege lords, Sir Bedivere, Sir Percivale (Bedivere and Percivale can be obtained in a single quest, if your questing knight is a Christian), and Sir Gal.
I also married off Lucan and Bedivere to merchant-skilled Ladies.

In conclusion, patient build-up was the key. As I pointed out at the beginning, I play on Hard difficulty, so battles can get bloody and, thus, costly in terms of unit replenishment. The key is not to rush things, but to carefully watch your income-spendings ratio.

Hope this helps,

--M

 

[eknarx]

@Mithelemir
WOW ... I am still digesting all the information. But that is REALLY generous and helpful. Due to my private situation I don't have so much time at hand. So I will probably play the game only once and in that case it is so much more fun, if I can compensate the lack of experience with some profound advice.

 

[Mithelemir]

Hi,

I am most glad that you find my information useful. On that note, I completely forgot about a subtle, yet vital aspect of setting up your economy to its running optimum. Namely, I am referring to proper marital matches and appointment of right Liege lords to appropriate provinces. I'll demonstrate via a simple example and you can then experiment on your own.

As you are likely aware by now, if you right click anywhere on a province map, a couple pop up options will appear (see pic below):

If you then left-click on the right pop-up option (Province information), a number of facts about that province will be displayed. For example, let's have a look at Wessex (next pic):

Just by glancing you can tell that the Liege lord is Sir Bedivere...But what I am after here is the bit at the bottom of this pic (with that clumsy-looking, fat, blue arrow pointing to it), namely Mines: 0. This indicator tells you that Wessex, de facto, has no mines.
By comparison, see the next pic, this time of West Mercia:

Mines: 1119 (by blue arrow again), tells you that there are mines there. Should you find an appropriate Lady match for your Liege lord, who has skills in bringing profit from mines, by all means assign that lord to West Mercia.
But...Note, the red arrows also. Sir Kay, although a good Liege lord, is an Arrogant Briton, meaning that you want to avoid having him as a ruler of any non-Briton provinces. In this case, West Mercia (see lower red arrow) matches his culture, so Kay makes a good Liege lord for this province.

Let's have a look at Sir Gal, by comparison:

Above, I've pointed the red arrow to Sir Gal's particular weakness/corruption -- Greed -- which makes him misuse mining income. Although Gal's Thrifty, Martial, and Stern attributes make him a fantastic Liege lord, you want to avoid placing him in charge of any provinces with mines in them. On the flip-side, note his wife, Lady Chaelin. Her weakness is Priggish, which negatively affects the movement rates of her husband's army. Chaelin, however, is an ideal mate for Gal, as Gal is not my army leader...And, what the game does not bother to clearly state, Lady Chaelin's Priggishness is only effective if her husband is an army leader. As things stand, she is a pure bonus to Sir Gal's already impressive resume. By comparison, Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere, as army leaders, would not be ideal suitors for Lady Chaelin.

On a final note, here is a quick quiz: Based on the information about the province of Kent displayed in the picture below, which of the three Knights, Sir Bedivere, Sir Gal, or Sir Kay is the most efficient Liege lord for this province?

The correct answer is Sir Bedivere. The other two either are poor at management of mines, or will mismatch with the local culture.

I am sure you can take it from here. Enjoy!

--M

 

[Kjeld]

So far I made good progress. I am around turn 25 and in the second book and raised 2,5 complete armies (complete army = 16 units). Actually I don't really need that much troops at this point of the game. I do most of my fighting with one and the same hero/unit combination. While a second army is mostly idle.

One army is more than enough in the beginning of the game. My rule of thumb is quite simple : as long as you have 4 heroes or less, stack everything in a single army. Then, as you get 5-8 heroes, start to store build your second army. At end game, with more than 9 heroes, you can start to build the third one.

But I am a little uneasy. I constantly run out of food in summer season and have a hard time saving money for improvements in my strongholds and research. Plus I have the feeling that the gold and food output of my provinces is very shifty. One midwinter a province delivers 8.000 food and in the next midwinter only 6.000. I don't change the province's liege or any of his artifacts.

I think there is some randomness involved.
Food is always a problem more important that gold in the mid game. Be sure to benefit from trade quests like the Millers Guild or Grain merchants that allow you to trade gold for food at a very nice ratio (actually, you "gain" net ressources by doing so).

- Are my provinces affected by something? If so, I could not say what. I remove the rebellion quest stuff usually immediately. I read something about ghost armies that affect the productivity of the provinces, but can't find any indication about them.

Ghost (samhain) armies are triggered by a special (mandatory) story quest, later in the game.

-Something else is entirely unclear for me. What effect does the 'hungry soldiers' event have anyway? It does not affect the armies morality or prowess as far as I can see. Is it possible that the missing food of the previous year is immediately subtracted from my food account once I receive new food in midwinter?

If I remember correctly, starvation is only a morale penalty at the beginning of the battle, nothing that can't be countered by appropriate battle tactics. However, it will prevent you to buy anything until winter.

How do you deal with the army compositions from different factions. My army contains everything from Summer Born to Lionhearts and Giants to the Griffon Guys (can't remember the exact name). Would it make more sense to focus on a branch? How do you judge to keep exotic troops. To refill them you usually have to waste two seasons? If you get units from a trade or diplomatic quest do you disband them, if they don't fit into your army composition or raise your amount of units to much?

Generally speaking, special, "morality" units and exotic units are better than your basic units, and at least comparable to basic units with full research upgrades (though the units that you unlock with advanced research like king's guards or deepwood archers are good too).
But even if they are comparable, don't forget that these advanced units can lead to some natural synergies : using changeling and sidhe units as old faith will have a lot of advantages over basic units, for example :
- Springborn and Autumnbred have a fantastic skill that cuts in half the cost of the bread and butter spell of Old Faith, Sidhe Roads
- Autumnbred and Winterborn can learn skills that allow them to fight effectively at night or during fog, allowing you to leverage the ability of the Unseelie to be more effective at night or in fog, and to use special tactics around that type of spell
...
- On the other hand, many christian troops get or can learn with exp. the Zeal skill that increase their damage when led by a chrisitan leader

 

[Nefaro]

Impressive write-up, Mith. A good primer on the economics of the game.

 

[eknarx]

@Mithelemir
Thanks for your further explanation. Actually I daresay that my selection of liege lords and my wedding policies were rather defined. I compared skills and province stats to figure out the ideal matches.

My mistake so far must be that I was not picky enough in my army's selection and ended up with too much troops too early. At turn 24 I have 8 heroes and 38 units. Even though I conquered Powys, Gloucester, Somerset, Salisbury, Dorset and Wessex. My income is not enough to maintain my troops and invest in food intensive research.

I judge these to be poor decisions:

@Heirs of Viroconium
In this quest I chose to deal with Brandelis instead of Owain. Because a hero and 6 troops seemed to be a better deal than no hero and 3 units. In hindsought I should have taken Owain's offer. Investing in class not mass.

@All Dimplomatic Quests
I tried to achieve the outcome that would maximize the gain in troops.

Restarting the game I would keep my army size to 1 until I get too much pressure to deal with.

 

[Noon]

@Heirs of Viroconium
In this quest I chose to deal with Brandelis instead of Owain. Because a hero and 6 troops seemed to be a better deal than no hero and 3 units. In hindsought I should have taken Owain's offer. Investing in class not mass.

In these kind of quests, you should make your choice regarding the morality you want to follow IMHO (especially if it's your 1st game). Here if you want to be christian, choose Brandelis, if going Old Faith, choose Owain.

 

[Kjeld]

Aye, choose Brandelis if you go christian anyway. Just disband the excess troops (your current vanilla troops and/or some of the crusaders) , keeping only the best ones (I think Brandelis has Lionhearts if I remember correctly ? those are great and should be kept and nurtured !)

 

[eknarx]

@Kjeld
You mean I should chose Brandelis even if I follow the OLD FAITH? For Christian Brandelis would be the natural choice.

 

[Kjeld]

No no, I was agreeing with Noon. I think you should take the natural choice for your religion choice (Owain for Old Faith, Brandelis for Christian Faith).