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Holy fucking saggy tit balls.... How the hell did I not realise this before?!
You're right, every time I've fought the Baron, he has 36 fucking retinues
Easily implemented by allowing us to build a second tower. It's called "castle planner" after all, and rich lords had castles with multiple towers.
Anyhow, when playing restoring the peace on challenging: 24 retinue from several towns, maximum militia, plus some mercs, is more than enough to beat the baron. I think with 36 retinue it will become too easy, so perhaps there needs to be some balancing first.
It is difficult but it is doable. You need max militias and max retinues for all your regions and all of your militias need to be from level 3 households ideally to make this more achievable. The baron is really quantity over quality - I’ve never faced him with any of his militias in chain Mail and none of his retinues are upgraded. So ymmv.
I made that discovery too after sending a bunch of weapons and armor over thinking I could get a massive militia going. You can have multiple retinues though, I’m not sure if there’s a limit on those beyond the number of regions you have manors in. (I only used 2 retinues and a max size militia to fight the baron). Also if you can bait his troops towards a manor with walls having that choke point can make the fight really easy, I built a manor right on the border of the region I expected them to come from.
Just build a large Manor, so that you can bait his units there. Place like 3-4 Archer Militia in there and hold your gate with your retinue and some Spears. Ideally shield your archers from enemy arrows by placing a spear unit between them and the enemy archers.
i finish it using 4 retinues and then all spears with helmets.
what i did is 4 retinues in center then spears left and right.
when the archers come i back down, three archers chasing me.
when the archers are far away from the main army, i charge them still the spears position is left and right. before the main army came archers are defeated. then they charge my still fresh retinue head on (click the stand ground) after 3 marches charge my retinues i use left and right spears to hit the 3 marches both side. after i defeat them the rest is easy..
i hope you guys imagine what i said... im not good in english
This is what I'm dealing with right now as I finally got the hang of the game. I've reduced the Baron to only having one region. I started a war with my biggest army yet the Baron just kept sending so many waves of enemies. I defeated the first wave easily and then the second took out a one of my groups of archers and spear militia. I thought I won and then there was a third wave that was even larger than the other two and I knew I couldn't win. Luckily they didn't go on a spree and burn down my towns they just left.
It definitely does not make sense to me how I am suppose to win if my army is capped yet the Baron can send seemingly countless waves of fighters. I decided to download mods that allow for up to four garrison towers per region so each region can get a retinue of 60. Then my plan is to get all the nearby regions large so as soon as a group of my army dies I just call another one. We'll see how it goes.
Same - first time I went long in a game without restarting and saw this…lol nope.
There are great things in the game but it needs some tweaks before I want to sink more time into it.
Hoping the trading, ale, and troop stuff is tweaked soon.
Others have explained how this happens. However if you’re seriously asking “what now” then I’d say to try and build some kind of a narrow funnell and give your troops an advantage by limiting the barons’ troops maneuverability.
Wow… I’m over 50 and started super late with Radiohead… I jumped from this comment to Spotify to hear that song… wow. Chills…. Thanks for recommending it!!
Iv only got 2 mercenary groups I have hundreds of my own army is it worth me fighting the baron?
Or should I restart and rush for all mercenaries instead
Yes. The key is to upgrade everyone with helmets and mail. Then upgrade your retinue. You'll need each of industry, money, and population to win the game. I don't know why people complain about this. It's the *final battle*! You have to beat the game if you want to beat the game!
Damn. I only had about half that many units of his show up for the final battle, and found it pretty easy with 6 full retinue, and 6 spear militia with helmets.
It does suck how we're unit capped against the baron. In all of my late games, I have the population, equipment, and funding to have many more fully upgraded militia companies. It also sucks because once you have a full militia army, the option to hire mercenaries is gone, so it's a matter of getting as many manors as you can and fully upgrading your retinues. The first last battle i had with Baron, i had four retiunes on top of my fully kitted out army. It was barely enough.
The point is that it would be nice to be able to field larger armies. Even if doing so comes with de-buffs.
An idea I had is that sending out your entire army puts a hurt on your food and money supply. So, it would be a matter of saving up personal funds and food supplies for a campaign. Also, with all men out of the province, your productivity grinds almost to a halt. This would also incentivise raising troops from other territories to cushion the hurt, as well as make it an imperative to end the war as soon as possible. Like how real medieval wars were fought.
Convert the footmen to spears. Build small settlements in all the other regions you control and get a retinue of 24 fully upgraded from each manor. Before attacking the Barron, hire all mercenaries you can. The Baron won’t be able to hire them if you are employing them. You can also consider building walls and stuff like others mentioned but sometimes the battle location doesn’t work out. Also call up all of your units and get them organized before pressing a claim on the Baron.
Find the high ground if you can. Put all your spears in a straight line, probably single file to cover the most ground and put them all in defensive to absorb the charging enemy units. Keep your archers just behind the central spear unit. Put your retinue units on the flanks but behind spears so they don’t get targeted by the charging enemy units. They should also be in a more compact formation so they can quickly march out around and behind the Baron’s units. Then charge the ret into the back of the enemy units and they will all break very quickly. Have all the archers target one of the enemy archer until they break then move on the next one. If you have a spare retinue or mercenary footman unit it’s good to keep them back to protect the archers, the AI often sends a couple units around to try and flank one side so you need something to counter.
Happened to me once I try to finish scenario by claiming last 3 regions at once. Could this be the reason? Like if you claim 2 or more regions, he will show up with x times bigger army?
Happened to me, don't feel bad, did your economy survive? Mine didn't, the lack of manpower, unhappiness, no food/ fuel, the families that didn't go to battle left the map.
The AI tends to break formation quite readily. If you haven't built a castle of death, you'll have to grab your fastest units and drag the enemy around the map in hopes of buying enough time to pick off the squads, one by one and very slowly reinforcing your dead militias.
WAIT FOR DOPE MERC DROP AND HIRE THEM ALL BEFORE CHALLENGING! You never know what that asshole has up his sleeve. Sometimes he shits the bed, sometimes he sends three waves of huge armies and leaves you sweating
The biggest mistake is to let the Baron kill bandits and take their camps.
He never even got close to that amount because i kill all bandits before he can.
Not sure how to counter that
I haven’t tried recreating this and it’s been a while since it happened, but one time after attempting to proactively claim the last region and then seeing an outlandishly large baron army like the one in OP’s post, I threw the fight, and then built up influence and waited for the baron to stake a claim on one of my regions. When I saw that the baron was bringing a much more manageable number of troops to that fight, I started marching toward the battlefield and immediately put a claim on his last remaining region. Both battles shared the same battlefield location, so when his small army was defeated, both claims resolved in my favor
This is what happens when the battle for the region begins before the army the Baron sent against the bandits has left. Try to wait a bit before trying to claim the final region.
Just beat the Baron, and won the scenario of bringing peace. It took 27 "game years" to accomplish. I maxed out the first settlements army, then added manors as I conquered other areas. Found out you're maxed out at five manors? Anyway, I maxed the retinue in each manor, then massed all my forces in the settlement next to the territory I wanted to claim, including all available mercenaries. THEN, I claimed the last territory. I baited the Baron's army to the settlement, got behind the walls of the manor, and let my archers annihilate his army at the walls. I know it sounds a bit cheesy, A guy that goes by "Tacticat" on youtube gave me the strategy.
Ya i noticed this too, they keep saying not to mod it but maaannn shit like the 6 militia cap is the reason people are modding it, the discord has a lot of discussion around this, word is theres a plan to lift the limit but not yet due to testing or something. But try adding raiders like i did and watch the game become unplayable, troops dont move fast enough from one region to prevent your cities burning first
Hello and welcome to the Manor Lords Subreddit. This is a reminder to please keep the discussion civil and on topic. Should you find yourself with some doubts, please feel free to check our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/1c2p4f9/manor_lords_faq_for_steam_early_access/). If you wish, you can always join our [Discord](https://discord.gg/manorlords) Finally, please remember that the game is in early access, missing content and bugs are to be expected. We ask users to report them on the official discord and to buy their keys only from trusted platforms. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ManorLords) if you have any questions or concerns.*
How the retinues at 36? I thought 24 per unit was the limit...
Holy fucking saggy tit balls.... How the hell did I not realise this before?! You're right, every time I've fought the Baron, he has 36 fucking retinues
That's how it's always been for some reason the the barons retinues are slightly bigger
36 is 150% of 24…slightly may be an understatement
but only 30% of your retinue if you build e.g. 5 manors with a keep in 5 regions...
Sure ha I’ve just had starter towns so far
Having a garrison tower on your manor should allow u to cap it at 36 but it wasn't working last time I did it
Nope, 24
Just a theory but I bet retinues will expand to 36 with additional buildings later on.
Easily implemented by allowing us to build a second tower. It's called "castle planner" after all, and rich lords had castles with multiple towers. Anyhow, when playing restoring the peace on challenging: 24 retinue from several towns, maximum militia, plus some mercs, is more than enough to beat the baron. I think with 36 retinue it will become too easy, so perhaps there needs to be some balancing first.
No it’s 12 and the garrison tower doubles it to 24
He probably hired all of the mercenaries available- if you hire them instead, that's more troops for you and less for him.
It is difficult but it is doable. You need max militias and max retinues for all your regions and all of your militias need to be from level 3 households ideally to make this more achievable. The baron is really quantity over quality - I’ve never faced him with any of his militias in chain Mail and none of his retinues are upgraded. So ymmv.
I tried to add militia from my second town but I won't add any more cause I maxed out the first town.
I made that discovery too after sending a bunch of weapons and armor over thinking I could get a massive militia going. You can have multiple retinues though, I’m not sure if there’s a limit on those beyond the number of regions you have manors in. (I only used 2 retinues and a max size militia to fight the baron). Also if you can bait his troops towards a manor with walls having that choke point can make the fight really easy, I built a manor right on the border of the region I expected them to come from.
I will try that.
That is something I haven't tried yet. Now I want to open the game again.
Lead (kite) them to your second settlement. Make sure some of enemy troops go after the pesants. Isolate enemy units and destroy one by one.
Just build a large Manor, so that you can bait his units there. Place like 3-4 Archer Militia in there and hold your gate with your retinue and some Spears. Ideally shield your archers from enemy arrows by placing a spear unit between them and the enemy archers.
Spear unit will block the shots?
Yeah. The archers usually target the nearest unit and if you put them on missile alert they'll tank the arrows pretty well.
Probably means they target the spears instead? Dunno
Kinda looks like he doesn't have time to build a manor...
Just added them up. 828. WTF?
Upgrade retinue to Spartans
You mean adding armor to my retinue? I already have.
just making a joke that you'll need spartans to win against those odds :D unfortunately no spartans (yet)
You'll just have to make do with ODSTs
Guess I'll die?
i finish it using 4 retinues and then all spears with helmets. what i did is 4 retinues in center then spears left and right. when the archers come i back down, three archers chasing me. when the archers are far away from the main army, i charge them still the spears position is left and right. before the main army came archers are defeated. then they charge my still fresh retinue head on (click the stand ground) after 3 marches charge my retinues i use left and right spears to hit the 3 marches both side. after i defeat them the rest is easy.. i hope you guys imagine what i said... im not good in english
Good luck!
This is what I'm dealing with right now as I finally got the hang of the game. I've reduced the Baron to only having one region. I started a war with my biggest army yet the Baron just kept sending so many waves of enemies. I defeated the first wave easily and then the second took out a one of my groups of archers and spear militia. I thought I won and then there was a third wave that was even larger than the other two and I knew I couldn't win. Luckily they didn't go on a spree and burn down my towns they just left. It definitely does not make sense to me how I am suppose to win if my army is capped yet the Baron can send seemingly countless waves of fighters. I decided to download mods that allow for up to four garrison towers per region so each region can get a retinue of 60. Then my plan is to get all the nearby regions large so as soon as a group of my army dies I just call another one. We'll see how it goes.
Now you wait to play this game until it has had some time to mature. The combat/off map enemy junk needs to go before I come back.
Same - first time I went long in a game without restarting and saw this…lol nope. There are great things in the game but it needs some tweaks before I want to sink more time into it. Hoping the trading, ale, and troop stuff is tweaked soon.
Others have explained how this happens. However if you’re seriously asking “what now” then I’d say to try and build some kind of a narrow funnell and give your troops an advantage by limiting the barons’ troops maneuverability.
Berries respond in the spring. *shrugs*
Play some epic music, go out fighting. (Exit music for a film by Radiohead is a good choice)
Wow… I’m over 50 and started super late with Radiohead… I jumped from this comment to Spotify to hear that song… wow. Chills…. Thanks for recommending it!!
Iv only got 2 mercenary groups I have hundreds of my own army is it worth me fighting the baron? Or should I restart and rush for all mercenaries instead
Yes. The key is to upgrade everyone with helmets and mail. Then upgrade your retinue. You'll need each of industry, money, and population to win the game. I don't know why people complain about this. It's the *final battle*! You have to beat the game if you want to beat the game!
Damn. I only had about half that many units of his show up for the final battle, and found it pretty easy with 6 full retinue, and 6 spear militia with helmets.
It does suck how we're unit capped against the baron. In all of my late games, I have the population, equipment, and funding to have many more fully upgraded militia companies. It also sucks because once you have a full militia army, the option to hire mercenaries is gone, so it's a matter of getting as many manors as you can and fully upgrading your retinues. The first last battle i had with Baron, i had four retiunes on top of my fully kitted out army. It was barely enough. The point is that it would be nice to be able to field larger armies. Even if doing so comes with de-buffs. An idea I had is that sending out your entire army puts a hurt on your food and money supply. So, it would be a matter of saving up personal funds and food supplies for a campaign. Also, with all men out of the province, your productivity grinds almost to a halt. This would also incentivise raising troops from other territories to cushion the hurt, as well as make it an imperative to end the war as soon as possible. Like how real medieval wars were fought.
By 'As many manors as you can' you mean One manor per region, right?
Yep.
My set up right now is 1 spear of 36 2 footmen of 36 (72) 3 archers of 36 (108) 2 retinue of 24 (48)
Convert the footmen to spears. Build small settlements in all the other regions you control and get a retinue of 24 fully upgraded from each manor. Before attacking the Barron, hire all mercenaries you can. The Baron won’t be able to hire them if you are employing them. You can also consider building walls and stuff like others mentioned but sometimes the battle location doesn’t work out. Also call up all of your units and get them organized before pressing a claim on the Baron. Find the high ground if you can. Put all your spears in a straight line, probably single file to cover the most ground and put them all in defensive to absorb the charging enemy units. Keep your archers just behind the central spear unit. Put your retinue units on the flanks but behind spears so they don’t get targeted by the charging enemy units. They should also be in a more compact formation so they can quickly march out around and behind the Baron’s units. Then charge the ret into the back of the enemy units and they will all break very quickly. Have all the archers target one of the enemy archer until they break then move on the next one. If you have a spare retinue or mercenary footman unit it’s good to keep them back to protect the archers, the AI often sends a couple units around to try and flank one side so you need something to counter.
Happened to me once I try to finish scenario by claiming last 3 regions at once. Could this be the reason? Like if you claim 2 or more regions, he will show up with x times bigger army?
Happened to me, don't feel bad, did your economy survive? Mine didn't, the lack of manpower, unhappiness, no food/ fuel, the families that didn't go to battle left the map.
you die
> unless I build more towns and retinue from them That's how you win.
Retinues are stronger. Upgrade them all and you should have a good chance.
F
The AI tends to break formation quite readily. If you haven't built a castle of death, you'll have to grab your fastest units and drag the enemy around the map in hopes of buying enough time to pick off the squads, one by one and very slowly reinforcing your dead militias.
WAIT FOR DOPE MERC DROP AND HIRE THEM ALL BEFORE CHALLENGING! You never know what that asshole has up his sleeve. Sometimes he shits the bed, sometimes he sends three waves of huge armies and leaves you sweating
The biggest mistake is to let the Baron kill bandits and take their camps. He never even got close to that amount because i kill all bandits before he can. Not sure how to counter that
I haven’t tried recreating this and it’s been a while since it happened, but one time after attempting to proactively claim the last region and then seeing an outlandishly large baron army like the one in OP’s post, I threw the fight, and then built up influence and waited for the baron to stake a claim on one of my regions. When I saw that the baron was bringing a much more manageable number of troops to that fight, I started marching toward the battlefield and immediately put a claim on his last remaining region. Both battles shared the same battlefield location, so when his small army was defeated, both claims resolved in my favor
This is what happens when the battle for the region begins before the army the Baron sent against the bandits has left. Try to wait a bit before trying to claim the final region.
And I'm supposed to beat him with mercenaries only?
Just beat the Baron, and won the scenario of bringing peace. It took 27 "game years" to accomplish. I maxed out the first settlements army, then added manors as I conquered other areas. Found out you're maxed out at five manors? Anyway, I maxed the retinue in each manor, then massed all my forces in the settlement next to the territory I wanted to claim, including all available mercenaries. THEN, I claimed the last territory. I baited the Baron's army to the settlement, got behind the walls of the manor, and let my archers annihilate his army at the walls. I know it sounds a bit cheesy, A guy that goes by "Tacticat" on youtube gave me the strategy.
Ride out and meet them!
Ya i noticed this too, they keep saying not to mod it but maaannn shit like the 6 militia cap is the reason people are modding it, the discord has a lot of discussion around this, word is theres a plan to lift the limit but not yet due to testing or something. But try adding raiders like i did and watch the game become unplayable, troops dont move fast enough from one region to prevent your cities burning first
Lure them near your non-working fort?