Source
r/mountandblade•
lee61

PSA: You can have your followers recruit and train troops for you. You don't have to build relation to get troops.

Tired of having to go from village to village recruiting units one at a time? Let your lackeys trusted companions do it for you!

  1. Go to your cultural area of choice.

  2. Open the clan menu and go to parties.

  3. select the option to "create a party"

  4. Give them enough troops to be somewhat safe, but not too much to fill their party.

  5. Then watch them as they go into the nearest village/town and just pickup 15+ troops like they own the place. They will keep doing this until max. Afterward they will just patrol around attacking bandits/enemy armies.

  6. When you want your troops just select the option to "create an army" at the bottom right-hand side and sort by cost. Clan parties cost "0" influence to summon.

  7. Speak the them and select "let me inspect your troops" take what you want.

Things to note

  • They don't seem to be affect by AI summons to create an army, so you don't have to worry about them being dragged into a campaign across the map.

  • If you intervene in a battle they are in or they intervene in one you are in. All the troops will be under your command.

  • Tactics makes their autocalc results better, Stewardess let's them bring more.

  • I also noticed that I would randomly start getting relationship bonuses by having them out campaigning.

Posted May 26, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

25245
bygodsNorthern Empire•

This is also an excellent way to start your own kingdom from scratch. 4 parties of 100+ and good policies (royal guard, noble retinues) and you can easily have an army of ~600 to start taking towns and castles as you please.

Also, when you take a town or castle, you can summon a single companion's party with the army function as OP details and then disband that army while standing near your shiny new but sparsely garrisoned town or castle. Before they move away, go to the clan tab and tell them to disband, and they'll go to the nearest clan settlement (your new holding, preferably) and have all their troops join the garrison. EZ!

97
madnessario•

This will happen either way. Just enter the city with your army and every noble/companion will recruit/put people in the garrison

45
bbates728•

But we can’t create a kingdom until we already have conquered something and we can’t send followers as parties until we have a kingdom (or a vassal).

15
KamikazeSnark•

You just need to strategically snipe a single castle with a small garrison and then sue for peace immediately afterwards.

Do it with either no siege engines or a single battering ram. Knock down the gate and go in through the front door. If you try to climb the walls with ladders you'll just get slaughtered.

19
Gypsy240•

If you have enough in your army you can raid the two villages and attempt to take a weakened city. Small beginnings and what not.

7
madnessario•

You can always leave a kingdom(as a vassal) and elect to keep your holdings with a penalty to your previous allies(and a war).

To avoid the war you can chain this with choosing to form a kingdom through the quest-line which forces a peace for your kingdom.

2
somedoofyouwontlike•

I had one make money for me which was odd because I figured it would just be a money sink.

27
lee61OPKhergit Khanate•

I think any loot they collect is automatically turned into money. If they get a lot of bandit battles I guess they would start breaking even.

21
beans2020•

It's not automatically turned to money, they actually go and sell it as well as random prisoners etc, they work just the same as your party does and getting companiions with high roguery can get you even more money. I use a mod that gives you even more control over what they do and lets you access their inventory, you can even add horses to it so they move faster if they have footmen.

19
lee61OPKhergit Khanate•

On nice, what mod?

6
Something_RoundLooter•

Mod is "Party AI overhaul and commands", it works for current stable version, dunno about beta.

12
beans2020•

Party AI Overhaul and Commands

2
Snebbik•

I too would like to know the mod

1
Drekor•

I've had a party that was consistently making 3k per day on it's own. was better money than a caravan lol.

1
BanzaiKen•

I use one of the party slots as a glorified baggage train. When they aren’t fighting they are smashing bandits for XP, but every time I start topping out on inventory or need a manpower refresh, I summon them, take what I need and dump all the loot onto them to sell. It’s a good late game use of Caravaner Companions, the Trade skill makes insane cash.

1
pdxphreekMercenary•

Mine recruited as much as he could and then sat in the bar for weeks.

3
FlankerPipLooter•

I do that to make money on my early lord campaign, just run an army with companions and wreck enemies lords. each one of my companions can make 1000-6000 per day and leadership skill.

1
ScientificBananaPeel•

This is also the easiest way to gain Leadership. Forming and leading armies gains leadership XP and is free to do with your companions.

17
gropingpriest•

I really only release them when a) I wanna recruit in towns or b) I'm Uber powerful and only need them for sieges or big battles. But that's not until late game.

The only big downside is you move a little slower

8
beans_lel•

You skipped over the step where my follower with 80 troops gets stomped by 5 man looter parties and looses all of their troops in a day.

8
somebadfeelings•

Are you sure that Tactics skill is currently doing anything for NPCs? I'm asking because as far as we know, all perks from Tactics are not implemented yet.

4
kanated•

Tactics gives a simulatio benefit even without perks, doesn't it?

11
ketseki•

I feel like the delegate command function in combat gets more options with higher tactics, but I can't really tell since my parties are usually low tier units when I have low tactics.

0
TheBakedGod•

I don't know for sure but anecdotally I can tell you my companions with high tactics skill do MUCH better then companions with zero tactics skill when leading parties. Often they even win when attacked by a numerically superior opponent.

5
BanzaiKen•

Tactic perks do nothing yet, but Tactics itself is extremely useful and gives a ton of surviviability to a weaker party. That being said Community Patch fixed quite a few perks.

2
rnathanthomas•

I’ll add a couple things here.

  1. You can form an army with them for free - so you can tool around with something like 500 troops.
  2. You can manually give them troops to train (like companion 1 has all my archers, companion 2 has all the cavalry, etc)....but....
  3. If you stop at newly conquered fiefs they really like donating troops to them
  4. And they seem to prioritize fully healed troops and releasing wounded ones (not sure if tiers affect that)
  5. Even if a companion gets captured, wherever they escape you can still create a party wherever they are and they’ll operate like usual
3
Duke_ofChutney•

oh, have companion parties stopped getting captured 2 minutes after being formed?

3
lee61OPKhergit Khanate•

Yeah getting captured is the biggest threat. Typically I give them enough to start off safe and close to areas they can reach max quickly. Typically far from any front line. I also don’t have them more than a day and a half away.

Granted their max is a base 95 troops. At that level most bandits aren’t an issue.

During war ( if I have a good reason to think they can get attacked) I have them travel with me normally. If you stop in a village or town they will automatically recruit till maxed.

3
Drekor•

Give them lots of horsemen and nobody will catch them except those they choose to fight and in those cases they should win.

Probably have to revisit to restock them with good troops though.

2
Llanite•

They really really like raiding villages (not sure if traits affect this). Its best that you keep track of their numbers and call them to your army when they hit 70-80 troops.

1
gropingpriest•

Call them into your own army. It's free and when org runs to zero just release and re-add them.

It is also by far the best way to rank up leadership and get those sweet sweet bandit troops into elites

1
Cisco_Kid•

its free to up the cohesion if the army is just your companions. no need to let it run to 0.

5
gropingpriest•

Huh, never realized that, thanks

1
aiquoc•

but I also want them to roam around and kill bandits near my settlements.

1
die_in_a_fire_reddit•

If you have dudes in your army and you go into a looted village, the companions will recruit normally even if you can’t.

3
Agisek•

it's also the best way to spend all your gametime running from one city to another picking them up and making the party over and over, because those idiots die to 20 looters despite having 80 of my best soldiers

I literally send four of them out to roam and in the next minute, three of them are "staying at [city name here]" because they got owned by a bandit after I gave them 80 soldiers each

the only use for parties at the moment is expanding your maximum army size by making 4 parties and quickly calling them into an army, doesn't cost you influence to call your own clan and you get some 200-400 extra soldiers under your command

2
Demartus•

You get relations boosts if they assist villagers in combat.

If you make a party with your spouse, they can join other armies. Companions won't.

1
shilli•

Kids parties also join other armies

2
SonOfSaruman•

Only thing I hate about this is relationship spammings on screen like all the time

1
Waybook•

> They don't seem to be affect by AI summons to create an army, so you don't have to worry about them being dragged into a campaign across the map.

Do they not go to war themselves though? Do they continue patrolling where you left them?

1
Hurldar•

They have fetish for raiding. Most of your kingdom parties will form army and your companion will beeline alone to raid, gets caught red handed and captured.

4
Waybook•

Sucks.

Could be something the trait system would work well with though - cruel companions would have a fetish for raiding, merciful companions would never raid.

1
hellomudder•

In my game last night I got this idea too. Gave my untrustworthy Kuzait guy a few shitty recruits (I was thinking he could level up them for me), but instantly ran away recruiting troops. When I found him he was apparently doing quests for some city in Vlandia. I changed my mind and disbanded his party (with my party next to the town) but he just fucked off to Makeb. I have no idea whats up with that guy. And I have no inclination to chase him down. Will he just return to my party after finishing up some quest or whatever he's doing over there?

1
lee61OPKhergit Khanate•

When you want to ensure you get the troops select the option to create an army and talk to the follower. That way you can pick and select which troops you get.

If they aren't at their max pool they will prioritize recruiting until max then start patrolling.

2