Easy starting faction?

[FraggerDaddy]

Hi,

I just got the game and it looks quite fun so far.

I want to start a new campaign and am wondering what faction is the easiest to start with to learn the game a bit more?

Also what is a good army composition at the start and the later game to get cities etc?

What do you build in your towns at the start? Lots of serfs and pigs or rather squeez out an army asap?

Thanks in advance

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by FraggerDaddy:

... I want to start a new campaign and am wondering what faction is the easiest to start with to learn the game a bit more?

I don't think it really matters which faction you start with, except you will find it much easier to choose a lord who holds a city, rather than one who only holds a town or two. So, look through all the kingdoms & lords and find a lord who holds a city and 1 or 2 towns besides.

Originally posted by FraggerDaddy:

Also what is a good army composition at the start and the later game to get cities etc?

Your starting army is super weak; go ahead and get rid of everything in it except 3 serfs. Your best army composition consists of 18 regiments (2 brigades of 9 regiments each) of level-5 macemen and 9 regiments (1 brigade) of level-5 bowmen, plus your 3 serfs. Don't bother with pigs & chickens in your field army. If it comes to the point that you have to recruit more soldiers in the field, then you've surely lost the battle.

I say 1 brigade = 9 regiments 'cause when you round up (draw a box or double-click) all of the same type of soldier the max you can get is 9. Group these into a brigade and assign a number by Control-# (where # = 0 to 9). Then you can recall the brigade and order it to move or attack by just typing its control number. So you have 2 macemen brigades and 1 bowmen brigade, which can defeat any town garrison in the beginning of he game. Just keep your bowmen a little in the rear so that they don't get beat-up by the defending militia or shot up by the defending yeoman archers. Charge the enemy yeoman archers with your macemen 'cause your macemen are weak against incoming arrows.

In the later game you will want to replace the macemen and bowmen with Templar Knights and trebuchets. Don't attempt to take a walled city with anything less than swordsmen; your bowmen are still sorta OK at this point, but it's better to replace them with long-bows or X-bows.

Originally posted by FraggerDaddy:

What do you build in your towns at the start? Lots of serfs and pigs or rather squeez out an army asap?

In your starting city you will want to build level-5 barracks and archery range, and also stone walls. Here is where you will crank out your field army to replace the weak army you start with.

In your towns -- the initial ones and the ones you capture -- build a barn & storehouse and then recruit 20 serfs, 9 pigs, and 1 horse cart. Later on you will want to replace the pigs with cows.

[CreepingSickness]

Hi,

I thought it looked like a lot of fun too!

I also just got the game (Wednesday evening) & have been playing it non-stop in the evenings since then, am enjoying it greatly. (Plus 50 odd updates from a tiny dev team on a game not even a year old yet? Thought that was pretty impressive!)

As for Faction: I went with Scotland, was hoping to limit the directions came from (i.e. not start off surrounded.) Plus I started with two hamlets, I figured that way I had a spare if things went really wrong...

Army at The Start: I usually try to pump out a 2 to 1 ratio of yeoman and militia just to survive while scraping by to upgrade my stone & iron to higher levels asap, try to get away with as few serfs as possible.

NOTE: I may have made a mistake as I selected the Easy level as I jumped into a new campaign straight away right after downloading the game, so I may very well not be getting attacked as much as I’d be if I was on Medium.

Mid - Late Game Army: Anyways I'd say that I'm in the midway point as I've conquered 1/2 or close to 2/3 of England. My army usually consists of 1/3 Billmen, 1/3 Bowmen, & 1/3 of Crossbowmen. I'd say about 1/2 are level 5 and the other 1/2 are higher levels due to surviving battle.

London is in easy striking range!

In Town: I usually build stone and iron production first then a archery range and barracks. I try level stone and Iron up as fast as possible so I can pump out a large if low level army asap.

Once I'm defended alright I then start upgrading my archery range and barracks after that.

Hope this Helps!
Hope you enjoy the Game!!

[FraggerDaddy]

Thx for those tips, those will really help.

What I forgot to ask is what research should I focus on first? Read somewhere, that either market or swordsman would be good, is that still accurate?

[CreepingSickness]

I'm not sure really, I was able to build a fairly good sized (low to lower mid-level) army, capture a few more hamlets, then had the income to buy the supplies I needed to complete a lot of the research whenever I felt the need to, or just plain felt like it.

(Currently I'm up to 2 larger cities and 6 villages, income isn't an issue, usually 1k - 3k really pretty quick at 3x time for short amounts.)

I only researched the market when I captured a town that had barely any wood production to speak of. Also as I said earlier I have captured approx. 1/2 of England including several larger cities, but I still have not researched any knights/swordsman.

Of course I was trying to get all the stuff needed for stone walls before doing too much more dedicated sieging of my own, which is what I would recruit swordsmen/knights for.

One thing to note though is that the market is a per town thing (and as of right now you can only trade goods in the town that market is located in.), not a kingdom wide one.

Say you build a market in London; you can't then trade the extra goods you have in York at the London market. (You'd have to build a separate market in York for that.)

Hope this Helps,
Happy Conquering!

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by FraggerDaddy:

... What I forgot to ask is what research should I focus on first? Read somewhere, that either market or swordsman would be good, is that still accurate?

The first research item should be "Royal Deregulation" in the trade category, which lowers the price of upgrading your villages. Normally it is 1150 silver to upgrade (playing at the hard campaign level -- quite a bit less at lower difficulty levels), but after you research that tech it becomes 690 silver per upgrade. Upgrading the villages is important, 'cause each upgrade brings way more taxes.

Researching towards the market is good, but only inasmuch as the market is a "happy" building -- generating 22 happiness per month. Rarely will you need to trade 700+ iron for wood, stone, food.

You should try to research towards Templar Knights or swordsmen -- Templars are way better though.

Start your next campaign on the hard/hard mode; you don't want to be stuck on easy-peasy. The hard/hard campaign is a bit more challenging but will be a lot more fun than breezing through everything that's too easy.

[FraggerDaddy]

Originally posted by wcbarney:

Originally posted by FraggerDaddy:

... What I forgot to ask is what research should I focus on first? Read somewhere, that either market or swordsman would be good, is that still accurate?

The first research item should be "Royal Deregulation" in the trade category, which lowers the price of upgrading your villages. Normally it is 1150 silver to upgrade (playing at the hard campaign level -- quite a bit less at lower difficulty levels), but after you research that tech it becomes 690 silver per upgrade. Upgrading the villages is important, 'cause each upgrade brings way more taxes.

Researching towards the market is good, but only inasmuch as the market is a "happy" building -- generating 22 happiness per month. Rarely will you need to trade 700+ iron for wood, stone, food.

You should try to research towards Templar Knights or swordsmen -- Templars are way better though.

Start your next campaign on the hard/hard mode; you don't want to be stuck on easy-peasy. The hard/hard campaign is a bit more challenging but will be a lot more fun than breezing through everything that's too easy.

That sounds good.

One last question, after i recruited the 18 macemen and 9 bowmen, and put it together in an army, do i fill the starting city with serfs and pigs too, or do i recruit a defensive army there and only fill the small towns with serfs and pigs?


Edit: And would you upgrade your cities mainly or all the small towns equally as much?

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by FraggerDaddy:

One last question, after i recruited the 18 macemen and 9 bowmen, and put it together in an army, do i fill the starting city with serfs and pigs too, or do i recruit a defensive army there and only fill the small towns with serfs and pigs?

You should fill the starting city with soldiers -- about the same as your field army, but you also need a horse cart & a couple of pigs. That's so that if your city is attacked you will be able to defend it without calling your field army all the way back from wherever it is. I only fill my small towns with pigs & serfs, leaving them undefended for now. When they are at level-5 with stone walls & ballista towers then they can sometimes defend against small armies. My feeling is to just let thm get conquered & then conquer them back -- sometimes you can intercept the enemy army before or after the enemy captures your town. Defeat the enemy army in a field battle and gain tech items as loot. Then go back and reconquer your lost town & get more tech items as loot.

Originally posted by FraggerDaddy:

And would you upgrade your cities mainly or all the small towns equally as much?

The cities are normlly at level-6, level-7, or level-8, and cannot be upgraded further. The towns start at level-1 and can be upgraded to level-5. I try to upgrade the towns equally 'til they are all at level-5.

[FraggerDaddy]

Allright thank you again for answereing all my questions, you really helped me out