How to stop the baron having all the mercanaries in the pool?

[satioh]

I played restoring the peace on normal difficulty and was ready for the final battle or so I thought. The baron shhowed up with 12 regiments and 414 people whereof 72 was retinue, after a bit over a month he showed up with another 11 regiments including 36 more retinues for a total of 792 people. I had been looking for mercenaries, but there haven't been a single one to hire for over a year.

How are you supposed to beat 792 troops when you can't even hire mercenaries yourself? If I kill some, will they come back in the pool, even if I loose the battle? Or atleast if I claim it again will he have fewer men?

On another note, say I managed to defeat him, can I continue playing the map or is it auto quit then?

[Spiffy]

The pool of mercenaries is shared with the baron, you want to recruit all the mercs available before you start a battle or the baron will grab them and send them your way. Given enough time the baron will recruit all of them but you can still counter this by settling other regions and adding manors to them, as each one will give you another company of retinue to add to your army.
If you win the first battle of the final showdown swiftly and decisively you won't even have to fight a second army so be sure to fight in the area given in the region you're attacking.

You can continue playing the map if you wish when the baron has been defeated.

[silent mike]

Hover over the magnifying glass upper left and it will reveal the battlefield as a big yellow circle. You must fight the baron within the circle for a decisive victory or he will keep coming back until the timer runs down.

[Yehoodi]

If you are kind of new to the game and are not going for the merc achievement you might want to look into building an army. I did archers and spearman.

Below is my experience with barons and mercs.

The barons gobble up the mercs, there are only handful of mercs available and once they are hired by either the baron or player, they are basically no longer available. Another player hopefully will chime in and give more details, but this is from my experience. (from playing the merc achievement).

I believe there are 8 groups of mercs and have heard they are all available in the merc pool within the first three months.

Each month 3 mercs of the 8 are available to hire. Once all mercs are hired, then no more available.

The barons will hire mercs form the active available mercs hiring screen when they attack a player's region or other region.

They also do this when there is a bandit camp, they do not seem to use their troops but buy a merc off the shelf to attack the bandit camp and that merc is not heard from again.

The mercs are generally bought in the first three years or less. So one needs to get regional wealth and then covert it to Kings wealth via taxes at a built manor.

For the merc achievement, one has to basically go all econ mode from the start with berries, planks, shields, honey, etc., go get enough regional wealth which can then be convert via taxes to purchase the mercs.

I had to done this a handful of time and finally have 9 merc troops before they are gone.

Also, as a side note if one of my mercs have lost troops, i save the game, disband the troop then it becomes available the beginning of the next month and i buy it back at full strength (this is the only exception to getting mercs back on the buying block that I am aware of).

[satioh]

So basically if I don't get an economy up and running to keep a merc army around constantly in the first 3 years I'm screwed? That clearly sounds like a bug. Even if I get 24 retinues for all the other 7 provinces and 6 full groups of milities, even his first army will still outnumber me.

[Spiffy]

Originally posted by satioh:

So basically if I don't get an economy up and running to keep a merc army around constantly in the first 3 years I'm screwed? That clearly sounds like a bug. Even if I get 24 retinues for all the other 7 provinces and 6 full groups of milities, even his first army will still outnumber me.

Mercs are great to compliment your army but aren't necessary to win. Also don't discount retinues that easily, they are by far the strongest units currently in the game.

Originally posted by silent mike:

Hover over the magnifying glass upper left and it will reveal the battlefield as a big yellow circle. You must fight the baron within the circle for a decisive victory or he will keep coming back until the timer runs down.

This is imperative when taking on the barons last region as this is where he'll field the largest army by far as you found out. It can easily be beaten once but twice in a row is ridiculous as you found out.

[pckirk]

just remember, the off map Baron, already has established troops, and income to hire Mercs as soon as the game starts. wait until the AI lords are added to the various regions. then you will be fighting for mecs with them also in a quick short time period. Poster Yehoodi has the correct path to go, if you want to hire mercs in the current stage of Early Access.

[Yehoodi]

Originally posted by satioh:

So basically if I don't get an economy up and running to keep a merc army around constantly in the first 3 years I'm screwed? That clearly sounds like a bug. Even if I get 24 retinues for all the other 7 provinces and 6 full groups of milities, even his first army will still outnumber me.

When I started the game I did not use mercs and just used a raised army.

You can set the game to not have the Baron attacked your land, I forget the name of the option, but it is in the start up screen. Good way to get your feet wet. If you choose this option, one can focus on just having fun developing one's village, then when you have enough resources build an army.

Raised army do not cost any coin they just need weapons, which you can produce with level 2 homes. And your folks are in the army without the need to hire troops.

Also, by year three or so, you should have enough of an economy to at least have a merc or two. you might not have two 110 coin mercs, but the two archer one i think is 40 or 50 coin, which is doable.

[Yehoodi]

Originally posted by satioh:

So basically if I don't get an economy up and running to keep a merc army around constantly in the first 3 years I'm screwed? That clearly sounds like a bug. Even if I get 24 retinues for all the other 7 provinces and 6 full groups of milities, even his first army will still outnumber me.

There are a few ways to get coin early, one of the easiest is to sell berries in the first year or two. I also, select the berries perk to double my berries.

Also, nice to have a good start map, what I did early on was start the game and before I started to build, check the berries (and see if it crown or not) and check the land fertility. Early on nice to have high fert. If I did not get what I wanted I just exited to main menu and restarted till i got a good start map.