Regarding vassal armies...

[fishhooks]

I'm assuming that the same factors that affect my army will also affect the armies of my vassals. Like morale penalties for being too large, or not getting paid (does feeding them apply? If so, how do I make sure my vassals have food?)

My real questions is, does too large an army, or not enough fiefs to cover expenses, result in desertions?

And can I do as one poster suggested...give my vassals 1,000 tier-one recruits and let them go all Genghis Khan?

[NixBoxDone]

I think NPCs don't so much pay for vassals or garrisons, instead the income and prosperity of their fiefs determines how many units they can field and how fast they replenish their warbands.

So a lord with few fiefs that are constantly raided will not only a smaller warband, but it will take longer for him to replenish it when he loses it in combat. AFAIK the companions leadership also influences the number of units they can field. You can give more men to the companions, but they won't replenish them like they do their own complements once they lose some. I'm also not quite sure if they upgrade them as you would.

Also, remember that the unit numbers regulate how fast your vassals are, so if you give them 1k tier 1 troops, they won't catch anyone out of position. Not so bad in sieges, but open field battles will probably rare. :D

[fishhooks]

Yea, that's a good point regarding vassal army size...didn't think about that. I was thinking more about, when I lay siege with them helping, there'd be a ton of meat-sacks to soak up damage and help minimize my losses...lol.

[Sohei]

I like to give lots of cavalry and elite troops of types I don't want for myself to vassals because this will help them to get to where they need to be faster and provide more help to me when we are in a battle together. You could give them lots of low tier troops which can help them in autoresolve battles but then they will just get in the way and water down the power of your force in battles you join.

[fishhooks]

Good point. Actually, my initial plan was to give them some decent cavalry and infantry units, to make them more effective. But then I started worrying about the maintenance costs for high-ranking armies. I'm afraid that, w/o decent income to pay wages, they'll have desertions...will they? Don't they have to pay higher wages to elite troops, just like I do?

Also of concern is the auto resolve issue. Since I plan on letting some of them patrol their own "borders" (to protect my flanks, and since I can't be everywhere at once), I'm afraid that a small army of high-level troops (which took me time and money to recruit/upgrade) will get thrashed by larger armies of low-level troops...is that correct?

[NixBoxDone]

Your low tier troops should either go with you and your companions, so you can level them up in a week or so of gametime, or go into a garrison. The reason for that is that the NPC armies don't check unit types, they just check number of units in garrison to decide where to siege.

So you can stuff a thousand t2 archer units into the castle and rarely will you have a siege on it.

Never seen any npc lose units due to desertions. I have seen their unit size sink from respawn to respawn after they lost fiefs, though.

Also, yes, auto resolve is a pure killer because apparently it counts neither your difficulty setting, nor the terrain. The auto resolve commander never positions your archers on hills, with the melee in front and the cavalry to ride over the enemy ranged position. They just fight fairly in 1 on 1 matches until one side has no units left. >_<

[Sohei]

They won't have desertions but they may put troops in garrison or even let some go if they have too many in their party. They will also be slow as mud on the map and get ganged up on easily. Once they reach a certain wage cost limit they will tend not to increase troop quality very fast any more and their income seems to set this limit. Their income also sets the rate they gain and promote new troops.

If you are using them mostly as patrols rather than assisting you directly then they will wind up losing sometimes and wasting all the troops you gave them. Just like the patrols you can make with the diplomacy mod though, they can still be useful despite this cost. If you help them to keep fast by going for quality over quantity and include a good portion of cavalry they will have some chance of running away from battles they can't handle by keeping their map speed up. This can help to increase the time between their losses. Left on their own, they will lose eventually regardless of what you do.

[NixBoxDone]

Yeah, if you want them for raids and patrols only, give them a bunch of high tier cavaly units. That skews their army strength and speed by a bunch without making them easy meat for things like the Swadia fun train.

[fishhooks]

Great info guys....thanks!

[Asphe]

Originally posted by fishhooks:

I'm assuming that the same factors that affect my army will also affect the armies of my vassals. Like morale penalties for being too large, or not getting paid (does feeding them apply? If so, how do I make sure my vassals have food?)

My real questions is, does too large an army, or not enough fiefs to cover expenses, result in desertions?

And can I do as one poster suggested...give my vassals 1,000 tier-one recruits and let them go all Genghis Khan?

Nope. They don't need/use food. They have platinum credit cards, with diamonds.

Basically all the lords get a few stats fixed at the beginning of the came. Unless the mod you're using allows changes later, those stats remain fixed.

So they all have a party size cap (they can recruit up to that limit but you can give them more troops over the cap). Their recruitment rate is somewhat fixed as it depends on their faction, number of fiefs/etc... ever notice they can get 'elite' troops almost magically? As long as they have a fief, they'll recruit troops and recruit faster if they have more fiefs.

*The party size cap is adjusted based on rank/position as well. Marshals get +100, sovereigns get +200 IIRC (it's good to be king).

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Give 1k tier 1 recruits? The AI considers 1000 peasants to be superior to 200 knights. It's a cheap way to deter the enemy's marshal. But he'll be so slow, he can't catch a cold. Might be better to put them in garrison.

Pathfinding / mounted troops %. The effects of those on a party's movement speed drops quite a bit as the party size increases. i.e. 1000 knights move almost as slowly as 1000 infantry. Try it out for yourself.

[fishhooks]

Thanks again...good stuff.

[Morkonan]

I haven't tried giving a lot of troops to a Lord in vanilla M&B:W. However, in Floris, a Lord will not accept more troops than he can command or afford to pay for. This may also be true for vanilla.

That mechanic also prevents one from abusing the postiive relations hit you get when you give troops to a Lord.

[fishhooks]

That's also good to know. I'm playing vanilla with Diplomacy, so it may or may not have an impact, but I will be sure to remember that when I get to Floris mod. Thanks

[DROPbear]

vanilla WB:
towns/castles = +20 unit cap
marshal = +20 unit cap
faction leader = +100 unit cap

AI lord does not have any upkeep, however they do have treasury that keep check with fief income and troop upgrade cost.

the richer the AI lord is , the faster his army tier up.

[fishhooks]

THAT'S one thing I was still wondering about...so the money they earn from fiefs isn't required to pay wages (like I have to do), but it is used to pay for troop level-ups, eh? Good to know...thanks.

[DROPbear]

Yup, thats why some players complain about enemy AI Leaders magically producing hundreds of top tier over period of time when their empire was shrink down to just 1 castle.