Will I ever be able to control more than 1 army?

[Chaos Theory]

...because at this point, it's nearly impossible to defend your kingdom. If I give my companions 6th-level armies of 100+, they ultimately get these troops wiped and get captured. And if I control an army on my North flank, I'm helpless on my South flank unless I march everyone across my controlled territory-- and by the time I get there, I've lost cities/castles already. ...then of course I'm attacked again in the North.

In this sense, the AI has a huge advantage, being able to form multiple armies at will.

[Leigh]

Being able to give vassal armies orders to attack/defend a location would be a great inclusion. And/Or add in patrol parties akin to the Diplomacy mod.

I'd say nay to direct control, but being able to persuade or order a army/party to do something would be a good idea in my book.

[Core]

There is a mod doing that. Until such a feature is implemented.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory:

...because at this point, it's nearly impossible to defend your kingdom. If I give my companions 6th-level armies of 100+, they ultimately get these troops wiped and get captured. And if I control an army on my North flank, I'm helpless on my South flank unless I march everyone across my controlled territory-- and by the time I get there, I've lost cities/castles already. ...then of course I'm attacked again in the North.

In this sense, the AI has a huge advantage, being able to form multiple armies at will.

1- An army is a group of partys. Just so we are using same terminology
2- I can't imagine them ever letting the player control more than 1 (army or party)
3- Since patch 1.5.2 your companions partys should die way way way way way less. In older versions there were mechanics (they kept every captured troops, even if it was 50 peasants... and then their t6 cavalry disbanded etc..) that caused them to lose top tier troops, and die easily.
4- The AI has many lords. Hundreds. All of them Consistently lose all their troops. And not only consistently, but often.
5- The player is "probably" supposed to lose all his troops at least once or twice a game (based on how often the AI loses it). but smart play can prevent this, in most, if not all of the cases.
6- Which leads us to companions. your companion (dont stack them with t5 troops... give them like 40-50 decent troops. let them buy recruits and level them up....) will probably lose his party a couple times a game. most likely to being in a dumb lords army and it starving.. Or being on a raid and getting captured). This sounds like a Balance thing devs aren't concerned about (i.e. AI loses partys over and over, why shouldnt player as well...?)
7- The devs HAVE stated they are working on "control" of your other partys. But most feel this is more like "Hey Companion, protect this towns area", or "hey companion dont raid villages" etc. Not that you can control them the same way you do your original party
8- With current Perk mechanics, it isn't a bad thing to lose your companion party. They lose it. this is a great time to go find him in town (in a couple weeks) "take him to party" spend his attribute and focus points he recently earned.. buy perks. give him another 40 troops. send him on his way.

Anyway, that is my experiences in game, and a reference to dev posts.

In other words... I think it's not going to change any time soon. for the above reasons.


Lastly: the controlling your faction issue. is a BIG issue. this is also why many people advocate using the trade perk to buy fiefs. Even if it is Buying and selling within your OWN faction. "ok, I think its cheaty to buy valandia city, when I'm aserai, I wont use it, and will trash posters who do.. blah blah blah" vs "well to get my faction to fight.. If I'm valandia, I need to buy Pravend,, and move it's former lord over to Dunglanys we just captured. this way I have to deal with trash bandits/looters all day near pravend (a worse problem) but my fellow lord is now near the front lines, will have partys over there. AND be willing to go to war, when the vote comes up.... etc"

[Chaos Theory]

Companion 'parties' are pretty useless when you've got your own kingdom. They'll try and clean up bandits, but most of the time they venture way out of my controlled area and are too far to be called upon for an army anytime soon. Perhaps establishing 'borders' somehow based on your current settlement/city holdings would fix this.

I'm hesitant to give them anything but elite troops because I'm often having to bring them into an army (or try to...) to defend my territory. And they're getting wiped/captured far more than once/twice per game when left to their own devices. At least elite-level troops lets them survive longer, replacing losses with peasants, which doesn't make a lot of sense either but I digress...

Companions don't help much when they're too far away from my objectives-- or they're captured or "holding".

Either way, when your kingdom has 2 enemy armies with 500+ troops coming at it from both sides, even if you have enough troops that can be mobilized from surrounding garrisons, your inability to amass a counter force to fight both is not possible. With enough money and troops to accomplish this, it seems like a superficial limiting factor to only allow 1 army.

And maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I've yet to see the trading of cities/castles as an option in any diplomacy screen. It just allows me to trade what's in my inventory, and sometimes noble prisoners.

[Callum]

The game is more about playing as a character and fighting alongside and leading your troops on the battlefield. You shouldn't think of it as some type of grand strategy game where you play as God.

What you can do however is call lords within your kingdom to an army, effectively allowing you to lead a huge amount of soldiers. You can also expand your clan and allow clan members to raise and lead their own parties too to help defend your territory.

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by Callum:

The game is more about playing as a character and fighting alongside and leading your troops on the battlefield. You shouldn't think of it as some type of grand strategy game where you play as God.

What you can do however is call lords within your kingdom to an army, effectively allowing you to lead a huge amount of soldiers. You can also expand your clan and allow clan members to raise and lead their own parties too to help defend your territory.

A bit related, but how about allow us to form an army of our clan parties when we don't have a kingdom? It's not like Genghis Khan couldn't form an army without have an official kingdom.

[Callum]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

Originally posted by Callum:

The game is more about playing as a character and fighting alongside and leading your troops on the battlefield. You shouldn't think of it as some type of grand strategy game where you play as God.

What you can do however is call lords within your kingdom to an army, effectively allowing you to lead a huge amount of soldiers. You can also expand your clan and allow clan members to raise and lead their own parties too to help defend your territory.

A bit related, but how about allow us to form an army of our clan parties when we don't have a kingdom? It's not like Genghis Khan couldn't form an army without have an official kingdom.

Unfortunately, you can't do that just yet. But it is on our list of things to add. :)

[The Big Brzezinski]

Direct control would certainly be too much. It would make more sense to give a party leader a very general order about the sort of stuff you'd like them to focus on, and loose them upon the map. Stuff like "Protect out holdings" (hunt bandits and solve problems at your fiefs), "Help our realm" (the same, but for the whole realm), "Harass our enemies" (pillage enemy villages, hunt weakened nobles, take caravans and villagers), and "Go to war" (volunteer to join armies). It should be very hands-off. It's hard enough keeping your own gang of chuckleheads in line without having to worry about those of the rest of your clan.

If you really need to get your clan parties together for some purpose, the army system already does this.

[The Zanzibarbarian]

There used to be a MOD ages ago where you could make a companion a Lord, and then you could tell him what to do and watch him going about doing "Lordly" stuff with his army. Even give him troops and gold.
Sadly, it's not available now.
But seeing the Deves post, Callum's on above, gives us all hope.
I just trust that they can sort this out sooner, rather than later and make it a priority to do as I think it's a huge miss on their part.
Why wouldn't you, as a King or Queen, want to give a companion "friend" a fife to rule over rather than just making them a governor of the place?
That being said, there is a MOD (Improved Garrisons.) where you can make a Guard for the city or castle (An "army" of sorts.) and then get them to follow you around once enabled.

[Chaos Theory]

Originally posted by Callum:

You shouldn't think of it as some type of grand strategy game where you play as God.

I guess I do need to change my thinking. Considering how many hours I had to play to get my character where he is now, I figured it was a full rags-to-riches story. At least I wanted it to be.

It's a great game, either way.

[Teralitha]

Have you bothered to try and recruit other clans to your kingdom? The more clans you have the stronger your kingdom will be. Or are you one of people who executes everyone and now the whole world hates you?

[Chaos Theory]

I haven't executed anyone. ...but I also don't have hundreds of thousands (millions?) of gold sitting around to recruit the other clans after I easily sway them to join me. They totally buy into my arguments, sometimes with critical successes (I've got 150 charm) but then they still want a crapload of money.

[Teralitha]

Ok, heres a tip, look in the encylopdedia at kingdoms individual clans, and find one that doesnt own any fiefs. usually a faction that has lost territory will have a clan or 2 without any lands of their own anymore. Hunt down those clan leaders. They will be cheaper to recruit. Dpending on many different variables, it may cost you anywhere from 50k to 200k to ruicruit one of those landless clans. Its alot easier than getting the ones with land that ask for millions.