How can I recruit better troops in Drezen (crusade mode)?

[Phil85]

My buildings say that I can produce all kind of troops, but I seem to only have the low level archers and footmen available to recruit. What am I missing?

[Wraith]

You need to do military councils it will upgrade your troops as well as allow you to recruit new ones

[GrandMajora]

Your basic troops that can be upgraded are your Footmen, Archers, Scouts, Church Guards and Veterans. The last two of which don't become available until Chapter 5, I believe.

All other units are mercenaries who become randomly available for hire each week.

To unlock them, you need to do Military Rank Up projects. Don't worry, they only take 1 day to complete. But in my personal experience, it seems like military XP is the hardest to get, compared to the other council ranks.

[CelticMutt]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Your basic troops that can be upgraded are your Footmen, Archers, Scouts, Church Guards and Veterans. The last two of which don't become available until Chapter 5, I believe.

All other units are mercenaries who become randomly available for hire each week.

To unlock them, you need to do Military Rank Up projects. Don't worry, they only take 1 day to complete. But in my personal experience, it seems like military XP is the hardest to get, compared to the other council ranks.

You get Church Guards in Act 3, but you can't upgrade them until 5. You can build the Spellcaster Lodge either after the first time you upgrade a fort to the second level, or after the first time you upgrade one to the third level, I forget which.

[Phil85]

You get the lodge by upgrading Drezen or an outpost?

[CelticMutt]

Originally posted by Phil85:

You get the lodge by upgrading Drezen or an outpost?

The outposts/forts. Granted I'm not 100% certain of this, but I've only ever seen the Main Spellcasters Lodge (the one you can only build in Drezen) after upgrading forts. I just can't remember if it's after the very first upgrade, or the second one. But just like with the other troop types, you have to build the main building in Drezen to actually get any troops, and then build more in forts to increase your weekly amount.

[Phil85]

Originally posted by CelticMutt:

Originally posted by Phil85:

You get the lodge by upgrading Drezen or an outpost?

The outposts/forts. Granted I'm not 100% certain of this, but I've only ever seen the Main Spellcasters Lodge (the one you can only build in Drezen) after upgrading forts. I just can't remember if it's after the very first upgrade, or the second one. But just like with the other troop types, you have to build the main building in Drezen to actually get any troops, and then build more in forts to increase your weekly amount.

How do I upgrade an outpost? Are they the green turret structures or the more square white structures? I traveled to those structures and can't find a way to upgrade them.

[CelticMutt]

Originally posted by Phil85:

Originally posted by CelticMutt:

The outposts/forts. Granted I'm not 100% certain of this, but I've only ever seen the Main Spellcasters Lodge (the one you can only build in Drezen) after upgrading forts. I just can't remember if it's after the very first upgrade, or the second one. But just like with the other troop types, you have to build the main building in Drezen to actually get any troops, and then build more in forts to increase your weekly amount.

How do I upgrade an outpost? Are they the green turret structures or the more square white structures? I traveled to those structures and can't find a way to upgrade them.

First you have to pass the decree to upgrade. Then, and this is important because the UI is dumb - you have to be in the crusade management screen, BUT not on the army management tab. If you try anything while on army management you won't see the option. So be on the decrees or events tab. Then you click on one of the green structures - those are your forts. It should pop up a page that will say UPGRADE or ENTER once an upgrade decree has completed. The upgrade is immediate when you select it, and then you get new building slots.

This is the second important part - in order to have the option to upgrade a fort, you have to fill in three of the four building slots of a level one fort in order to have the option to upgrade it. Once you have upgraded a certain number of forts, three I think, you can upgrade a level two fort to level three, again needing to fill in most of the building slots.

This is the third important part - you can only upgrade a limited number of forts. I don't remember the exact number, but I think you can only upgrade a max of six or seven forts to level two, and of those forts a max of two can be upgraded to the third level. And the second one can't be done until Act 5, because you can't capture enough forts in Act 3.

And the biggest reason to upgrade forts, besides increasing building slots to increase your income or weekly troop counts, is that you can only build teleportation circles in Drezen and in level 2+ forts. So you need to plan ahead and decide where a teleportation point is most convenient for you, since you can teleport your party to any fort with a teleportation circle once per day, greatly reducing travel time. And for the record, I don't really know which are the best locations, I just wing it.

[Phil85]

Thanks for the help!

[psionyx]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

But in my personal experience, it seems like military XP is the hardest to get, compared to the other council ranks.

Interesting, that was the easiest one for me to pick up, along with Diplomatic/Leadership. The hard one was Logistic XP, which is mainly because I didn't know it was directly tied to just building more upgrades.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by psionyx:

Interesting, that was the easiest one for me to pick up, along with Diplomatic/Leadership. The hard one was Logistic XP, which is mainly because I didn't know it was directly tied to just building more upgrades.

Maybe you get military XP from killing enemy armies and capturing their forts? I haven't paid too much attention to it. But for me, military upgrades are the slowest. While I keep getting a bunch of upgrades for the other ones.

[CelticMutt]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Originally posted by psionyx:

Interesting, that was the easiest one for me to pick up, along with Diplomatic/Leadership. The hard one was Logistic XP, which is mainly because I didn't know it was directly tied to just building more upgrades.

Maybe you get military XP from killing enemy armies and capturing their forts? I haven't paid too much attention to it. But for me, military upgrades are the slowest. While I keep getting a bunch of upgrades for the other ones.

Military XP is gained solely by recruiting units, both normal and mercs. I don't know if units recruited by decree count though. Leadership is gained from killing enemy armies and capturing forts.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by CelticMutt:

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Maybe you get military XP from killing enemy armies and capturing their forts? I haven't paid too much attention to it. But for me, military upgrades are the slowest. While I keep getting a bunch of upgrades for the other ones.

Military XP is gained solely by recruiting units, both normal and mercs. I don't know if units recruited by decree count though. Leadership is gained from killing enemy armies and capturing forts.

Gee, wouldn't it be nice if that was directly stated IN GAME? Honestly, I don't know what any of these stats do and how you get them. My guess:

(STAT: HOW YOU GET IT + BENEFIT)

Military: Recruiting + unit upgrades
Logistics: Buildings + outpost upgrades
Leadership: Enemies defeated + ???
Diplomacy: ?????