Why recruit captains?

[A Little Rat Boy]

On around turn 90 of gong du campaign on hard and was wondering what is the point of getting captains vs regular lords. With regular lords you can get better units and its not like the captains units show up right away like mercenarys.

[Jerry]

Less upkeep and some Factions/Leaders have good synergy with them. You can basically create 3 full stacks and only use 3 Heroes. Let them roam around together and Auto Resolve battles, you will always win with their numbers.

Captain Retinues are very usefull for the mid-endgame when you have multiple fronts and cant be bothered to play every battle yourself, and they don't hurt your economy as much. You have less problems with items or court positions and loyalty since you need to manage less heros.

A last usefull point is that they are expendable. You don't really lose anything valuable if they get caught in an ambush or decimated. As long as your economy is good enough you can keep creating them.

[identity]

Originally posted by Memearu`:

On around turn 90 of gong du campaign on hard and was wondering what is the point of getting captains vs regular lords. With regular lords you can get better units and its not like the captains units show up right away like mercenarys.

It's much more useful on Yuan Shao, since he uses his resource to recruit generals and won't always be able to do it, and like Carry said, you would technically only need 3 generals to field 3 armies instead of 9. Good unit to upkeep ratio from what I've seen, and I'm a fan of the archer group instead of using strategists. Also like Carry said, they're expendable and nothing is really lost should they be defeated.

It might be useful for Gong Du later in the game if you're running short on people in the recruitment pool. I noticed he does tend to get a lot of random free generals, but not much appears in the pool over time.

[Metadragon]

Originally posted by Memearu`:

On around turn 90 of gong du campaign on hard and was wondering what is the point of getting captains vs regular lords. With regular lords you can get better units and its not like the captains units show up right away like mercenarys.

The are on the spot garrisons. Same for the pirate mercs in Sun Jian's campaign. Easy to slap a cheap captain or two down to defend from Liu Biao and go galavanting south or west or east with your real armies to build yourself up. Later on they are cheap and expendable second armies for siege padding or autoresolving if thats your thing.

[D. Edwards]

Wait wait wait, what's this captain you all speak of? Maybe I am missing something after my 100 hours of playing O.o.

[Metadragon]

Originally posted by D. Edwards:

Wait wait wait, what's this captain you all speak of? Maybe I am missing something after my 90 hours of playing O.o.

Yuan Shao and Sun Jian can recruit nameless captains instead of generals to lead armies that are cheap and have no baggage to deal with.

[D. Edwards]

Originally posted by Metadragon:

Originally posted by D. Edwards:

Wait wait wait, what's this captain you all speak of? Maybe I am missing something after my 90 hours of playing O.o.

Yuan Shao and Sun Jian can recruit nameless captains instead of generals to lead armies that are cheap and have no baggage to deal with.

Ahh ok. Didn't know that but that's because I have yet to play those two.

[Metadragon]

Originally posted by D. Edwards:

Originally posted by Metadragon:

Yuan Shao and Sun Jian can recruit nameless captains instead of generals to lead armies that are cheap and have no baggage to deal with.

Ahh ok. Didn't know that but that's because I have yet to play those two.

they are really only good for mop ups and defense though. If you play records they are way more valuable. The other issue is low quality units and they don't level. But they are cheap and spammable even by the player

[shoobers]

The Turbans use them too. Since they have limitted recruitment pools as well, that leaves them having a much stronger impact even in late game. As others have said, the ability to not have as much upkeep is the main draw. Also rapid replenishment.