Running a squad gets to be a chore...

[Tachyon]

...and I only have around 14 or 15 in my squad! How on earth to people not get bogged down in the minutiae of training them, equipping them, selling the "loot" from dead NPCs with squads bigger in number than mine - some people have HUGE squads, with mods enabling 256 characters slots? I'd never get anything done, micromanaging that lot. I don't get a lot done even managing my little squad. :)

[vortex_13]

You only really need lots of characters if you're building a huge base and need the labor.

[Zombie101]

I run around with just 5 guys and pets Normally as I explored in villina. With a mod a found that be a problem do the enemy being better armed better stats. But I slow play on slow you call normal speed. Was till my main computer was killed.

Damn Update VIRUS!!!

Never look at new gear!! Sometime comes broken!! IT SUCKS LIKE HELL WAITING!!!!

[Fnordian23]

To run huge squads I recommend giving up on the idea of making each of them hero adventurer types. Equip them once for their job and strength level with a modest weapon and leave them be to do o automated chores. While your main party needs to be somewhat optimized there is no need to min-max and micro-manage your entire town. imagine if you were playing as Lord Phoenix of the Holy Nation. technically you could command every slave, farmer, shopkeeper, peasant and child to war. But it makes a lot more sense to keep them safe and working, not trying to run after their severed limbs after a battle.

Running a huge caravan or war party can get very time consuming trying to keep everyone healed, carried, fed, following at pace, etc.

Some tips:

1. Organize multiple squads by who is where. Although I take it further and have a squad for beasts, sometimes a separate squad for ranged, etc. Let some people stay at a base or in town, although this can be demanding on memory to have more semi-active locations.

I edit my squads depending on circumstance, like my specialty crafters are sometimes on base and sometimes roaming. Some characters go on rest or vacation. I role-play it a little. (Would Wall-Man want to go build new walls in the swamp with the away team, or defend the city he worked hard to build? Wall-Man said he will stay home at The Ranch this time around.)

2. Know tips and tricks for moving people and goods around, like shift-clicking stacks of goods, having mods for improved stacking and storage. For people there is the match slowest speed button and anothjer technique of using shift-click chains of follow commands. But be careful when you switch squads or send out a loner that an old follow command isn;t still active.

3. Always have Garru or Bulls with backpacks to help you move inventory between characters, storage, and shops. You can loot a body then immediately open into the animal's storage (they will need to be close, closer than a transfer between your characters). You can also drag inventory between portraits so you hardly ever need to open up a trade manually.
Walking storage is mandatory for larger parties unless you don't care about looting. If you can afford enough, get one pack beast for each category you need. Mentally assign that one beast is for weapons that might be usable and gear, another for backup or useful clothing and armor, another for food, one for building and crafting supplies, and maybe several more for random loot ready to be sold.

4. Use the specific armor storage and weapon storage chests. This removes the stolen tag and frees up space on your pack beasts. If you are crafting armor or weapons, have multiple of those chests nearby since they can fill up fast. TO do a mass re-equip, have everyone run into the room and then open a storage or beast storage, then just drag items onto portraits. Then open up one inventory, move gear, drag old gear to an animal. Hit > or whatever to do next character. Sure there will be a lag between every character getting upgraded one at a time but for story reasons or convenience reasons it can makes sense to do it all at once.

Here's an example where a mass re-equip made sense for the story. My recent playthrough, after working for about two months, my 30 or so slaves were upgraded to freemen (in the service of my faction). The trade-off meant they had to remain as employees for at least one more season, and also go to war one time to take Okran's Shield. This meant they got a ceremonial side-arm sword instead of bare hands, and changed out their shackles for black sandals. They kept their de-humanizing fogmasks since it is actually quite dusty out. Thanks to some random wandering robotic dogs, iron spiders, and skeletons, which injured most of the Holy Nation defenders, Okran's Shield was eventually taken. The former slaves returned to The Ranch and will stay there in relative safety, behind walls they built and guards their labor hired.

[Adjudicato]

Currently running a mixed-batch 18-man squad in the world, with a 41-man squad at a main base tucked away into a valley. Most of them don't do anything, just laze around and eat our abundance of food. Been doing an anti-slaver run and just don't have the heart to dismiss the freed slaves that want to join us.

Management isn't too bad if you think about what you want to do first and try to get it done efficiently with as few characters as possible. Just seems intimidating at first.

[RandomDude]

"9" is my favourite max number for running a squad (not counting the folks at a base). That's only because bedrolls stack up to 9 at a time.
Some of the micromanagement can be a pain, and I hope there's less of that in Kenshi 2.

I also feel like the larger the squad, the more diluted the power each actor has. It's always my smaller squads that are powerhouses, and the 21-man ex-bandit squads will take much longer to reach that level of fighting, that they're not worth bringing to assaults usually, unless Im roleplaying.

[Insomniac Jack]

Unless I'm making a war party to raid a particular location, I prefer keeping squads of 2-6 (about 4 being the sweet spot). This makes combat manageable without having to slow it down and pause every couple seconds.

My main issue is multi tasking between squads concurrently. So I tend to focus on one group at a time, even though it's not the most efficient method.

[Tachyon]

The above two posts tally with the way I now look at the game, after a coup[le of weeks of play. I use training dummies to get myself and an initial 4 or 5 recruits up to a standard where we don't lose every skirmish. Then I recruit about 8 prisoners who I don't bother training, stick 6 on turrets and have a couple of workers for food production and iron plates. I then leave the base gate open and just fight anyone that attacks us, after the turrets damage the ones trying to get inside. It seems to work very well.

I'd love to have several bases and lots of soldiers, as in Myth of Empires (which this game reminds me a lot of), but it would be like whack-a-mole trying to micromanage everything. No, for me a tight squad that can kick ass is the way to go.

[Spack Jarrow]

Majority of the Squad is automated doing work in your settlement to produce food for the fighting expedition and defenders as well as crafting weapons and armour.

Skeletons don't eat so that removes food juggling

what we do is exactly what you do , you take 15 you train them, you park them in your settlement as guards you take another 15 and go trough round of "Training.

You can have 3 squads doing different Stat Training on rotation.

0-10 on training dummies

There are areas that are very good for mass training.
Firstly the area where United cities conscripts fight with Samurai Conscripts , is pretty good for training levels 10-40.

Then okams shield provides second level 40-60 as you meet paladins there, you can become around 60ish stat level , just battling in these two areas. 15-20 trainees at a time.

Alternatively get Better Training dummies mod and build training halls.

Equipment is not a problem when you have a master crafter.
My every "long term" playtrough I basically do nothing but craft for first 2-3 hours until I get at least High Grade crafting skill. So knowing the shortest path to "profitability" here is key.

Katanas and Crossbows are VERY low budget in terms of skill required to make effective use of them.

Martial Arts and Heavy Weapons require Strenght Dex Thoroughness
Katanas need only dex , which Trains itself as you fight
Crossbows need only Perception

in particular katanas are extremely easy to train , you give them Good armour but POOR (but light) weapons and you gain relevant kills at the fastest possible rate , "by existing".... no need to haul stacks of Iron in a backpack for 8 hours a, every batch of recruits.

In comparison martial Arts doesn't even do anything until level 45 , it's a nightmare to level. You need Everything

Another thing to note about training is that, as you get damaged your combat ability gets progressively worse.
So Material arts sucks balls because of this the most , since its reliance on stats is the biggest. You won't get any material arts experience most of the time, you just get 90 dodge , unless you know EXACTLY how to manipulate the game.

[Fryskar]

Spack Jarrow lähetti viestin:

Majority of the Squad is automated doing work in your settlement to produce food for the fighting expedition and defenders as well as crafting weapons and armour.

Skeletons don't eat so that removes food juggling

what we do is exactly what you do , you take 15 you train them, you park them in your settlement as guards you take another 15 and go trough round of "Training.

You can have 3 squads doing different Stat Training on rotation.

0-10 on training dummies

There are areas that are very good for mass training.
Firstly the area where United cities conscripts fight with Samurai Conscripts , is pretty good for training levels 10-40.

Then okams shield provides second level 40-60 as you meet paladins there, you can become around 60ish stat level , just battling in these two areas. 15-20 trainees at a time.

Alternatively get Better Training dummies mod and build training halls.

Equipment is not a problem when you have a master crafter.
My every "long term" playtrough I basically do nothing but craft for first 2-3 hours until I get at least High Grade crafting skill. So knowing the shortest path to "profitability" here is key.

Katanas and Crossbows are VERY low budget in terms of skill required to make effective use of them.

Martial Arts and Heavy Weapons require Strenght Dex Thoroughness
Katanas need only dex , which Trains itself as you fight
Crossbows need only Perception

in particular katanas are extremely easy to train , you give them Good armour but POOR (but light) weapons and you gain relevant kills at the fastest possible rate , "by existing".... no need to haul stacks of Iron in a backpack for 8 hours a, every batch of recruits.

In comparison martial Arts doesn't even do anything until level 45 , it's a nightmare to level. You need Everything

Another thing to note about training is that, as you get damaged your combat ability gets progressively worse.
So Material arts sucks balls because of this the most , since its reliance on stats is the biggest. You won't get any material arts experience most of the time, you just get 90 dodge , unless you know EXACTLY how to manipulate the game.

I'd pick some training gear (penalties to attack/defense) and stay longer on the lower enemies.
Same with weapons, as you gain xp on stikes (both hit and blocked), you want to hit as often as possible for little dmg.

Getting wounded lowers str and dex, which can indirectly slow xp gains individually as they land less hits on an enemy. That only applies if you fight with more than 1v1.

All weapons profit form having high str and dex.

[Spack Jarrow]

Fryskar lähetti viestin:

I'd pick some training gear (penalties to attack/defense) and stay longer on the lower enemies.
Same with weapons, as you gain xp on stikes (both hit and blocked), you want to hit as often as possible for little dmg.

Getting wounded lowers str and dex, which can indirectly slow xp gains individually as they land less hits on an enemy. That only applies if you fight with more than 1v1.

All weapons profit form having high str and dex.

If you penalize a low level Martial Artists they learn how to dodge and nothing else. What ends up happening is you just roll around as enemies strike you from multiple directions and this is more the case if you have Attack slots unlocked.

unless you mean it like , when you reach the threshold of xp gain , then I agree you could do that. tho honestly if you go to the next area you will get XP at similar pace.
I assume you will get better toughness gains if you move on.