Any tips on recruiting a larger army?

[Uber Goober]

Perhaps I just missed something somehow, but I can't seem to recruit a large enough army to kill the dudes in one of the forts blocking the way to the Hellknights in act 2, prior to re-taking Drezen. The only thing I could do would be to literally farm forever to build up funds, while otherwise skipping hundreds of army turns, just so it will let me recruit enough troops.

In other words, let's say I have enough money; how do I get it to LET ME recruit enough troops? It runs out of troops and locks me out of mercenaries before I run out of money and I have to wait something like 5 turns before it'll open that up again, and even then, it only refills just a very few, so I have to burn another 5 or so turns before it'll let me do that again. It's so bad that I can't help but think I'm doing something wrong here in terms of recruiting my army, but I don't know what. Any suggestions?

[HydraLord]

Hi there.

There are no many ways or options from where you stand. When you start with the warcamp for the first time, you can talk to Irabeth to recruit more troops (and she takes something like 7500 gold coins) and you start with an extra army. What you said is how things work; you have a limited amount of troops with a growth per week (or 5 days not sure). Until you take Drezen this will not change, after Drezen you will have the capabilities to change amount of growth, type of units, more mercenaries, and several ways to boost your troops.
In your situation, tactics in the battle are you way to win (unless your army were decimated in previous battles), or perhaps you may try to recruit a mage commander, many players like them for how powerful they are...with the damage spell he may help you out of your situation.

Hope this help
Have fun

[Steffan]

Originally posted by HydraLord:

Hi there.

There are no many ways or options from where you stand. When you start with the warcamp for the first time, you can talk to Irabeth to recruit more troops (and she takes something like 7500 gold coins) and you start with an extra army. What you said is how things work; you have a limited amount of troops with a growth per week (or 5 days not sure). Until you take Drezen this will not change, after Drezen you will have the capabilities to change amount of growth, type of units, more mercenaries, and several ways to boost your troops.
In your situation, tactics in the battle are you way to win (unless your army were decimated in previous battles), or perhaps you may try to recruit a mage commander, many players like them for how powerful they are...with the damage spell he may help you out of your situation.

Hope this help
Have fun

This. Please note that saving the hellknights is optional. If you are really struggling, just concentrate on the forts that lead to Drezen. You might pick weaker armies along the way. You can deal with the other armies once you are back.

I would advise caution when you see an enemy army with a general. These might hide some surprises.

And by the way, you can move your party through an enemy army (you will have to pass a stealth check to avoid a random encounter; it is a good idea to minimize your losses as it makes steamrolling easier). Only the enemy forts can not be crossed but there are no forts between you and the hellknights camp.

Personally, I do consider the gargoyle encounter to be tougher than most of the content (I have beaten it in my previous run) and usually play characters that are not lawful... no shame in that.

Do not forget to recruit mercenaries. Your infantry and archers are only two units. The rest of the slots are filled with mercenaries. You can also search for generals with the "master of maneuver" feat. It is very handy to field more troops on the battlefield

An example from my first playthrough where I did not go to save the hellknights. Just before storming Drezen (I think I'd lost some infantry in the last battle but it is not a big deal I could compensate that in the next chapter with some investment)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2781633552

[Uber Goober]

Thank you both for your responses! Indeed if memory serves (I got frustrated and haven't touched the game in a week or so) it was the gargoyle army encounter that was kicking my rear seven ways from Sunday and has wiped out two whole armies so far. Clearly I've got something else backwards in tactical maneuvers here, so maybe I need to brush up on that, but that's another topic so I'll check on that out-of-band.

Thanks for confirming that I'm somewhat limited in my options here; I thought I must have been doing something just plain bass ackwards but apparently not just yet, having yet to take Drezen.

As for that playthrough you mentioned, steffan8, that link is throwing a non-specific error within Steam. Doesn't say it's "not found" but isn't terribly helpful as to why it's failing either. Not sure if it's a bug in Steam's backend platform or a permissions issue. Maybe I'll check on it later, see if whatever the problem is auto-corrects itself (caching issue maybe? who knows...)

Anyway, thanks for the input, both of you!

[Baldurs_Gate_2]

The troops are not really the source of damage you are seeking. Later on, the range units are good, but you actually deal the most damage with your general and i mean, a caster general. Get one with scorching ray, later he gets fireball and then firestorm.

In chapter 2, you actually just cast scorching ray over and over again. Then replenish your magic points and so on.

Melee generals are terrible. Never use them!

[Shahadem]

IMO just cheat and give yourself the units you would have been able to have if the mode was well made.

[Steffan]

Originally posted by Baldurs_Gate_2:

Melee generals are terrible. Never use them!

Terrible, maybe not. Harder, yes. Personally I am a big fan of the ranger generals.

[HydraLord]

My pleasure Uber Goober, hope you manage to go through that part and enjoy the game.

Have fun

[hilburnashua]

One small trick with mercenaries. When recruitment becomes available what mercenaries are available are set before you open the recruitment panel. But you do have one free search. So, if none of the mercenaries are good, save, do your free search and see if any good ones turn up. If not, reload. The more mercenary buildings you have built (can be built in Dresen, forts and bastions) the more slots there will be for mercenaries.

If you have only one slot for mercenaries and you hire those, you cannot get any more that week. Even with the reroll.