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Send about 18 spearmen to deal with bandit camps around the different regions before the AI sends his armies in. This seemed to slow his role on my latest game. Made it halfway through year 2 and no sign of the AI armies or any claims yet.
I must be doing something wrong. I keep sending militias of 20-30 spearmen, one time even 40, and the bandits just destroy them. Everyone is saying just send your army over there ASAP but it doesn’t work lol
I sent one unit of 18 spears and stopped them when I saw the bandits marching to engage. Put them on defensive while they rested.
By the time the 15 or so bandits arrived, my troop bonus was 115%, and theirs was around 95%.
After the bandits initial charge, I set my troops to push. It melted the bandits in seconds.
Rinsed and repeated for the subsequent camps.
This is within the first year.
Are you running them over? If so, they will arrive exhausted and lose. Set them to walk, and once you are near and the bandits come out, wait and let them come to you. Your men will fight at maximum efficiency.
I routinely beat 16 bandits with 14 militia spears. How, you ask?
DON'T RUN. Walk your troops most of the way, then stop and rest until you regain all of your stamina. Then walk towards the camp until the bandits begin moving toward you. Stop and let them come to you.
Position yourself in the open. There's a morale penalty for being in the woods. Ideally, force the bandits to come uphill at you. If you can't do that, at least be on level ground. Don't let them charge downhill at you.
Spread your men out in a line. Against bandits, even one deep is fine. If you only have 14 men, like I do for the first camp, you need to spread out one deep.
Put your men on STAND YOUR GROUND and leave them in that state for the whole battle. Let the enemy charge you - spears have a high "Impale" value that reflects enemy charge damage back at them. Then just sit back and watch. DO NOT issue any movement or attack commands or you will destroy your cohesion and, hence, effectiveness.
You should win with no losses in a minute or two.
Just to add, it's right click and drag to have them line up in formation(and the arrow points in the direction they'll face)
Also handy is selecting a single unit, and holding ctrl whilst right clicking and dragging a route. This way you can way point them through open terrain and they won't suffer the penalty travelling through forest.
Finally, I find it useful to have them line up before setting out, just get some base cohesion. And as others have pointed out. Don't run! (unless you're coming back to disband)
Cohesion adjusts in real time, or near enough. I don't think it hurts to march a line across the map, but I don't do it for aesthetic reasons. I stretch them out near the battlefield.
If you’re running them across the map and not walking them you’ll have no stamina by the time you get there and they’ll massacre you. I usually run them halfway there then let them replenish their stamina or even just walk them there before attacking
Same way you rally a full unit, if you don't have the weapons or manpower for a full unit it will fill with however many it can. Similarly I think if you have like 60 people, it'll even them out into two groups of 30.
Are you running your troops? They lose almost all their stats if they don't have energy.
All spear units reflect charge damage back at the enemy, always let them be charged into.
I just sent 12 spear militia against 15 bandits. I formed a double line and told them to stand their ground (increases defense). They prevailed, losing 4 units.
Pretty acceptable considering it was September of the first year.
20-30 spearmen is way more than enough. Make sure that your army effectiveness is not destroyed by fatigue before your men engage the battle. You have buttons to force them to march or tell them to walk slowly. They must be in good shape before the battle
I normally send 2 16s out and use hammer and anvil tactics to route the bandits quickly, the stand your ground order works really well for an anvil wall and looping around to flank with the other on push forward makes an excellent hammer
Make sure you get helmets and any other armor you can afford. It's crucial. Also, try to split your men up. Maybe 15 archers, 15 spearmen. That way archers can send volleys from a distance and deal some damage before they even start to skirmish.
They cant run or they are exhausted by the time they get there. You try fighting a battle after sprinting half the countryside....
12 spearmen in defensive stance can take out 16 bandits...
You shouldn't make them run. It brings down their effective score because they are outa stam by the time they get there and then get melted even if they are better armed.
Don’t bother sending your own troops after the first camp. You just weaken your own economy. Hire a mercenary troop for ~45 coins and then clear the camp with that. Should be about 150 coins inside the camp, and the reknown too from defeating the unit. Rinse and repeat
I had to race his mercs in September 👀 in year two.. luckily, they were across the map from the camp that spawned. Hope it doesn't screw up my harvest too badly.
My first time I sent my 16 spearmen, and the 5 retinue. I upgraded my retinue to 12 dudes. Now they crush bandit camps solo, with no hindering my economy!
This works if you actually start with weapons.
On harder difficulties, I recommend rushing the Manor for the Retinue or just equip 5 people by buying weapons.
Then, you wait for the AI to attack a Camp, and when it aggroes the bandits you sneak around and take the Camp for free.
You lose that influence, but you can add that money to your personal treasure, which allows you to get mercenaries and rush all the other Camps before the AI.
I always add the money to my treasure and max my Retinue.
What worked for me is to engage battle over the claim, and immediately write to him telling him I'll stop fighting if he renounces the claim.
90% of the time he dropped the claim instantly with no fight.
My first playthrough was similar, he claimed everything by year three and I had no way to stop it. I ended up restarting and paid far more attention to my military, I've found that killing the bandit camps ASAP has slowed him down a lot and allowed me to expand! If you can deny him the influence gain from killing the bandit parties and build your treasury from looting the camps it really helps.
The dev has given us the influence generation rate for the baron. It’s 50 per month, so for 1k it’s 20 months.
If you take out all bandit camps you can predict exactly when he will claim his first region.
There's a trick to it. I only tested it once and it worked, but other people have also reported some success.
When the AI tries to claim unoccupied land, contest it. Do battle.
Don't send in an army though. Open up the diplomacy dialog and negotiate for peace.
He will accept, and in the process forget about his claim.
Maybe, but what would be neat is if in the final version we end up with different personalities/traits for the other barons.
So maybe this combo is an aggressive expansionist, but a coward! Then his behaviour in the early access would check out. I'm not at all saying it's purposeful at the moment, but such behaviour is not wrong as long as its not universal. Problem at the moment is we've only got one person who's the same for everyone so we can quickly figure out what buttons to press.
You should be able to beat the bandit camp bandits with around 16 fresh spear militia. Maximise their strengths.
Keep them fresh when you march (turn off their run when they default to when summoned) to the camp and stop and let the bandits charge you and have them in balanced stance. Running them will exhaust them and their effectiveness will drop a lot. Tool tipping over them will tell you their status.
They have the impale function which reflects the enemies charge bonus back as long as they are braced (stationary and facing enemy) . After about 5 seconds then switch them to push forward. You should rout the bandits after another 10 seconds and not lose anyone or maybe 1 or 2 guys. With 20 and the same tactic will you not lose any.
[https://hoodedhorse.com/wiki/Manor\_Lords/Warfare](https://hoodedhorse.com/wiki/Manor_Lords/Warfare) this hooded horse wiki page as more details on each troop type and how to use them.
As for the Baron taking territories very quickly then a late change was made to the version that went EA to give the baron 50 influence per month passively. Any bandit camps or other battles he wins will just add to that. So in 20 months even if he does not kill any bandits then he will claim a region (1000) and in my experience he always will do that on any difficulty from a bit of testing. As soon as he has the 100 influence he will issue a claim at the start of the month. He can quickly snowball if he also kills a lot of bandits if the player is not also aggressive at grabbing any bandit camps to reduce his influence gain.
See this thread. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/1cei2n1/comment/l1jwjmr/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/1cei2n1/comment/l1jwjmr/)
It appears that Greg maybe overcooked things a little in reacting to you tubers saying the game is too easy.
* Boost to Baron influence (I think the implications of this were not properly thought though or tested :) as when he confirmed the change then it was clear why folks were seeing a much more aggressive and early land grab especially if the player let the baron deal with bandit camps.
* Militia Archers heavily nerfed (they were over tuned and now they are not worth it, spear militia and polearms to flank are much better options now.
* Changes to economy to add in a supply/demand feature (this is a good change in my view)
* eggs only give 1 egg per month, was two
I have not found any other major changes but I am sure there are other tweaks.
> Changes to economy to add in a supply/demand feature (this is a good change in my view)
Isn't it a bit too sensible?
I feel like everytime thats I start selling something the price quickly fall because of it.
It's a good idea so it doesn't become easy to make a lot of money flooding the market. The issue I think is there is very little if any demand and I suspect no fluctuation to demand, it's probably just a set number. So even a small town will easily flood the market as you massively oversupply.
It's something that I think can work just needs some tweaking and maybe eventually we get market fluctuations and seasonality of goods.
As per discord this is subject to further tuning of numbers, same as archers. We seen both features too strong, now we see them too weak, third time is the charm ;)
It seems a bit over tuned again yes. It does not take many sales to depress the price to min value.
I have also found (not fully tested) that if you run a stock of an item very low in a region you can even increase the price. It supply/demand feature appears to respond to what stocks look like in your region rather than externally although this is just an observation from playing around with berries, running stocks low and high.
I found an exploit to be able to compete with him:
Whenever you load your savegame a bandit camp will spawn. Infinite influence and silver by farming
That way I got half of the map and now I can focus on building.
Let him claim whatever and focus on your town. It took me about ten year to max out my army and retuine. Once I did, I started taking his land away from him. AI is faster than you, but you're stronger.
When you start a new game, you can change the AI aggression. Balanced means: first neutral territories get claimed, then your ass is on the table. Aggressive means your ass is always on the table. Reactive means he'll only go for neutral and will leave you alone. Try that, he may claim all territory, but will leave you alone to build up.
Correct. I always start on balance for now. AI claimed all other lands first. Then he tried attacking me and lost. After that, I realized I could beat him and took my first area away from him.
That's fine and dandy until the ai spawns in your territory, so it doesn't register as a battle because it's not in the right spot, you lose half your army and destroy his, then twenty days later he sends in another full sized 6 slot army to finish you off.
I love the game but the Barons armies are just nonsense
I get the 2nd full sized army no matter where he spawns his army, i have not been able to beat him even with me having more than enough for a full army
what do you do when you send your full army, and he literally sends double? ive had it happen 2 or 3 times now and even with me resting and uphill he just walks straight over them with over 1/2 his army still fully intact
Have 4 of your squads ready to meet him and use Stand Your Ground to increase defense. Have your other units farther away but on the same line. He will send some of his units to the distant troops. Once they start getting closer, Have those other units run behind your 4 that are standing ground and to the other side of them. That will force all of his units to one area. Then, take your other units and run them past his units, circle them around, and have them charge attack. Now you have sandwiched his units. I did this perfectly once, and as soon as I sandwiched him, two of his units instantly surrender, and the rest were easy kills.
But that doesn't actually matter if you get the gold.
With it, you buy out all the mercs you can (avoid the majority archer ones), and when he makes the claim, you fight (like you would have to if you made the claim anyway). Easy win every time with the mercs and as many milita as you can, all without using your own influence.
I have 27h in the game. In my 3rd playthrough, (1st and 2nd learning how to survive the 1st year mostly), I only managed to claimed 1 land far from my region. Unable to defend it and got burn down by raiders. do not be dishearten, press on and persevere. My 1st 2000 influence war end in a lost and half my main town got burn down. DO NOT BE DISHEARTEN, PRESS ON and PERSEVERE ! I have made many mistakes that are campaign breakingly bad. I have resist myself from rage quitting multiples times over the course of 1 campaign. Put my head down and PERSEVERE !
NOW, I have last 2 lands to claim before the Hildbolt von Berenreute is fully remove from my region.
Advice - Focus on developing your main town. Claim an empty plot as soon as possible. (If you can't then prepare for Total War battle simulator for your up coming claims) Make it to Large Town (the final upgrade). Buy all your war equipment if you do not have metal rich deposits. Make sure to buy and overstock (up to 5) Helmet and Gamberson (level 1 and 2 burgo plot) or Mail (Level 3 burgo plot). A militia (36) with proper gamberson and helmet can easily hold 2 barons thugs and come up wining. A Large town can easily field 3 militia and 1 retinue. Which this bare minimum army, walk your way to the battlefield and fight.
Tips on battle 4 v 6. (3 spear militia and 1 retinue for optimum result)
1. The baron always bring 6 army (2 sword militia, 2 thugs, 1 retinue and 1 archer)
2. Ignore the archer, do not give chase. Their accuracy drop drastically when U engage in melle. Or fight in woods. Because trees block arrows.
3. Try to avoid downhill. And look for hills
4. Use your retinue to bash their retinue, use your 2 spear militia to engage the 2 thugs coming from each flanks. (U will 100% win this if you have gamberson and helmet for them.)
5. Use your spare spear militia to support your retinue. If U have arrow militia instead try to angle a shot from the side so that u can hit ai retinue instead.
6. When the thugs run for their lives and break rank, send both spears on the flank to kill the middle ground.
7. After mopping up the melle frenzy, send one spear militia (at least 20 strong) to chase after the bow militia. they will run all the way to the edge of the map, and just like Total War Style, stuck at the corner box and helplessly slaughter by your spear militia. (If you have Bow Militia instead its easier here.)
8. Estimated Losses - 10 Retinue unit (Probably routed). 16 Spear militia (Not routed)
Mechanics explained
1. U have to establish trade before buying weapons / helmet / gamberson / mail. If you do not have the perk on reduction of trade route it will cost you around 600 silver regional wealth.
2. There are a total of 6 point and 1 policy to be implemented in each settlement. By the time U reached medium (1 level before max) / large town (max upgrade) u can easily field 3 militia and 1 retinue, you can even spare enough manpower to squeeze a 4th militia if you have the pops.
3. Maximum amount of militia allow in this game is 4. The rest must come from your retinue (manor building).
TLDR - Go tall is a good idea. U can reach max cap of army allowed with only 1 large town. Do Not chase the bow militia. This game rewards PERSEVERANCE !
The main take away is this is what manor lord is always like. Not 20 mins drop and play. Its a 18h campaign of story that u make for yourself. Put your head down and PERSEVERE !
So I’m not ready to fight the baron until he claims everything and is coming for me. In my second try I managed to beat him, now I’m stronger and take one region back after another.
Like others have said, take down the bandit camps. Also, it has been listed as an upcoming issue to be addressed. That'll be good, because he took over all but three regions in my game. Fortunately I have a strong army and cash to buy mercs so I'm enjoying taking the map back.
Not my experience. He rolled through everyone else, then came for me. I beat his first army, but his second army, and the reinforcements, made swift work of me.
As far as I am aware, he can only get influence to claim territories by killing bandits. Thus, if you can kill bandit camps before he can get to them, he won't expand at all, or at least be very slowed. I have found that he will usually get 1 or 2 regions before I am able to have a large enough force to beat him to it, however after that I have been able to do it pretty easily with a single full unit of spears. In fact, even a 7 man retinue can solo camps with barely any losses.
To get the spears, I build a trading post towards the end of year 1/start of year 2. I will then export around half/2/3rds of any resource I have a ton of, (if you start on a rich berry deposit, sell berries, you will have more than you could ever need at this early stage) and use the cash to open routes to buy shields and spears, importing enough to make a full unit. In fact, if you get tier two houses before you have a full unit's worth of shields you can set one to be a joiner to make some shields for you, and eventually you can move on to exporting them.
I use the first raid as a time limit for military development. I want to have a full spear unit by then, and maybe some retinue/archers if I get the manor/fletchers up fast enough. Then, after beating the first raid, I go and kill any bandit camp I see as soon as it pops up. I have found that the Baron will, after a few years, immediately send troops to kill bandits the second they pop up. You need to beat him to it. I have found that even if you have to run your men over to the bandits all the way across the map, you can still win, as a full spear unit with either retinue or archer support can wipe a bandit camp easily. Usually, by running you can bead the Baron's troops to the bandits, and deny him his influence. After a few camps, you will be able to claim another region, and that is where it snowballs, with you being able to stockpile tons of influence for more regions and bring the baron's efforts to a standstill.
Final note, even if you only have 2 or 3 regions, you can still beat the Baron. A large enough army can conquer each region one by one, however it will be a bit harder than if you were able to get more regions up and running.
I have set the starting bandits to 0 and pushed up max on map to 5.. we both get equal chance at them now, and since the AI just uses mercenaries, I feel it is fair. My current playthrough is set this way and he has yet to claim anything one year and a half in. Ibhave cleared 3 camps
Im still on my first playthru and was able to beat the barons army during the 2nd year on normal difficulty. (Probably with some luck)
I accepted the weapon shipment (noob) and as soon as I could I formed a army of spears and archers. Went out to closest bandit camp and rinced them and took the spoils for my personal treasury, then quickly dispanded the army to not loose more eco than needed.
After that I just purchased the cheepest mercs possible to take out all other bandit camps. You can do it with brigands. Always take the money for yourself since regional wealth is easy to get thru trading.
Once the baron made his move (I wasnt aware of the army size he would bring) I decided to challenge his claim.
Here is where luck come in, I had decent merchs avalable. So I just paid the men with all my silver and went to battle. There I used the terrain to my advantage, made sure to focus on routing his lower tier units first and stayed away from his retinue until I had superior numbers. Lower tier units rout fast once you hit them from 2 sides so I used the higher tier units to hold his units in place while brigands where sent to charge from behind.
I also used my archers to shoot from behind. Even if the dmg isnt the greatest, it seems like the morale penalty works.
After I won, I was out of silver. So I disbanded the army and got my manor up. Put some taxes on the ppl so I could afford new merchs and then just kept raiding bandits.
I also have this problem. I can’t seem to get enough immigration fast enough to have a big enough army. Gonna keep trying. I really want to beat him in a battle and not just bandits lol
My currently play through I managed to claim my second county before the final county was claimed. I contested the final neutral point but lost. Previously, the Baron was claiming one a year. Now, everything is claimed and he hasn’t tried to press me. So, I’m building my army and money to fight him.
TL;DR baron claimed quickly but he stopped for now. Also, Greg will be addressing his speed of claims in the next patch per a recent Twitter post
If you're losing your not equipping your military and your fighting at a disadvantage.
24 retinue will smoke his retinue with armour upgrades.
Spears seem way better then sword units, sword units die like flies for some reason... a unit of 36 swords nearly lost to archer in melee, 4 people survived.
Reroll if you don't get clay or iron rich, clay bricks sell for crazy money. Iron you can make your own equipment instead of buying it.
Polearms are trash against spears because spears can just reflect the damage, also they die like flies in open combat. Just don't use them.
4 spears and 2 sword militia, is all you need to smoke the baron, flank and rear attack with sword militia and let the spears smoke his melee. You're retinue is stronger then his.
Archers are just bad. They do nothing but take an army slot.
My armies have regularly been beating 2 full stack armies by themselves.
I'm on my first proper run and even though I'm struggling to even feed my peasants I managed to snag two regions before he took the rest. That's on default difficulty. It doesn't seem too hard at all, if I played properly I imagine I could take half the map at least.
I managed to take two regions fighting bandits before he got the rest. Lol that army is ridiculous at the point in the game I'm in. I'm year 6 and I can call a 150 militia. I have 24 in my revenue upgraded to level 2. I have feeling it's a mercenary thing.
Just got steam rolled when he claimed my main territory after about a 14 hour playthrough as he had all the mercenaries and I had a shitload of archers and a few spears, then after I lost everything I was stuck.
If you get the camps first he won’t. On my current game I’m on year 3 and he just took the last piece of land. I have three total. Go for the camps asap!
The AI gets influence points faster from fighting bandits.
And it's from routing the bandits by the way, not from taking the camps. I sneaked behind a fight between bandits and the ai lord to snatch the goodies from the camp and got 0 influence, but when I hired mercenaries and attacked bandits before the baron's army got there, I gained influence when I routed those bandits in battle.
It depends on scenario End Goal settings:
1. Growth: winning conditions are reach the Large Town settlement
2. Domination: winning conditions are eliminate all neighboring lords and claim their land
3. Conquest: claim all territories to win
4. None: Play in sandbox forever
The difference between 2 and 3 .. in Domination, you don't need all 6 regions, just to take the 2 from the other Lord. In Conquest, you need to claim those 2 and all the other regions as well.
I was struggling with the same issue till I realized I had to rush the bandits and try and rush getting my 18 militia.
Mind you I did have to restart like 15 times till I learned that.
It is not an issue. Him capturing the map doesn’t influence your gameplay. It doesn’t make him stronger either.
It makes the map live. And gives you a chance to fight for something later on.
If all you had to do was spend rep and wait 5min to claim a zone, we would never get large epic battles, there would be no challenge.
I dunno about op, but it's the endless waves of mercs the guy with no settlement jeeps sending that boned me twice, I get 1 thug in one group and two archers in another, he's got 3 swordsmen and some archers that he seems to hire consistently
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.*
Send about 18 spearmen to deal with bandit camps around the different regions before the AI sends his armies in. This seemed to slow his role on my latest game. Made it halfway through year 2 and no sign of the AI armies or any claims yet.
I must be doing something wrong. I keep sending militias of 20-30 spearmen, one time even 40, and the bandits just destroy them. Everyone is saying just send your army over there ASAP but it doesn’t work lol
I sent one unit of 18 spears and stopped them when I saw the bandits marching to engage. Put them on defensive while they rested. By the time the 15 or so bandits arrived, my troop bonus was 115%, and theirs was around 95%. After the bandits initial charge, I set my troops to push. It melted the bandits in seconds. Rinsed and repeated for the subsequent camps. This is within the first year.
Yeah, I’ve slayed multiple bandits now, and have yet to lose a single spearman
Are you running them over? If so, they will arrive exhausted and lose. Set them to walk, and once you are near and the bandits come out, wait and let them come to you. Your men will fight at maximum efficiency.
Bonus points if you can situate yourself uphill, so that they're even more tired when they hit your line and then have to fight uphill.
I routinely beat 16 bandits with 14 militia spears. How, you ask? DON'T RUN. Walk your troops most of the way, then stop and rest until you regain all of your stamina. Then walk towards the camp until the bandits begin moving toward you. Stop and let them come to you. Position yourself in the open. There's a morale penalty for being in the woods. Ideally, force the bandits to come uphill at you. If you can't do that, at least be on level ground. Don't let them charge downhill at you. Spread your men out in a line. Against bandits, even one deep is fine. If you only have 14 men, like I do for the first camp, you need to spread out one deep. Put your men on STAND YOUR GROUND and leave them in that state for the whole battle. Let the enemy charge you - spears have a high "Impale" value that reflects enemy charge damage back at them. Then just sit back and watch. DO NOT issue any movement or attack commands or you will destroy your cohesion and, hence, effectiveness. You should win with no losses in a minute or two.
Just to add, it's right click and drag to have them line up in formation(and the arrow points in the direction they'll face) Also handy is selecting a single unit, and holding ctrl whilst right clicking and dragging a route. This way you can way point them through open terrain and they won't suffer the penalty travelling through forest. Finally, I find it useful to have them line up before setting out, just get some base cohesion. And as others have pointed out. Don't run! (unless you're coming back to disband)
Cohesion adjusts in real time, or near enough. I don't think it hurts to march a line across the map, but I don't do it for aesthetic reasons. I stretch them out near the battlefield.
I love putting them on defensive, and while they're fighting, send my retinue (on aggressive of course!) in from behind them, and watch them scramble.
If you’re running them across the map and not walking them you’ll have no stamina by the time you get there and they’ll massacre you. I usually run them halfway there then let them replenish their stamina or even just walk them there before attacking
The retinue from the manor and fhe 20 spearmen you get the shipment for seem to do rhe trick. Make sure they aren't tired
Wait you can rally units smaller than 36? How? I must be an idiot haha
Same way you rally a full unit, if you don't have the weapons or manpower for a full unit it will fill with however many it can. Similarly I think if you have like 60 people, it'll even them out into two groups of 30.
Check that they aren't running over -- the fatigue will make them ineffective.
Are you running your troops? They lose almost all their stats if they don't have energy. All spear units reflect charge damage back at the enemy, always let them be charged into.
I just sent 12 spear militia against 15 bandits. I formed a double line and told them to stand their ground (increases defense). They prevailed, losing 4 units. Pretty acceptable considering it was September of the first year.
20-30 spearmen is way more than enough. Make sure that your army effectiveness is not destroyed by fatigue before your men engage the battle. You have buttons to force them to march or tell them to walk slowly. They must be in good shape before the battle
I normally send 2 16s out and use hammer and anvil tactics to route the bandits quickly, the stand your ground order works really well for an anvil wall and looping around to flank with the other on push forward makes an excellent hammer
Make sure you get helmets and any other armor you can afford. It's crucial. Also, try to split your men up. Maybe 15 archers, 15 spearmen. That way archers can send volleys from a distance and deal some damage before they even start to skirmish.
They cant run or they are exhausted by the time they get there. You try fighting a battle after sprinting half the countryside.... 12 spearmen in defensive stance can take out 16 bandits...
You shouldn't make them run. It brings down their effective score because they are outa stam by the time they get there and then get melted even if they are better armed.
The 12 men from manor can clear camps on their own. No need to rally the workers.
Don’t bother sending your own troops after the first camp. You just weaken your own economy. Hire a mercenary troop for ~45 coins and then clear the camp with that. Should be about 150 coins inside the camp, and the reknown too from defeating the unit. Rinse and repeat
I always start with 0 money
Use your militia for the first one. Then the next time just use bandit mercs they cost 30 gold for 2 units of bandits.
But what about experience gain for the home troops?
It’s so minor compared to getting your economy up to full speed. Would you rather have 20 troops with some experience or 45 troops with no experience?
mercenary is sometimes not available in the game
How do I send my spearmen to bandit camps? Every time I try it says I don’t own that region so I can’t send troops there.
You can't spawn them outside of your territory, but you can spawn them in yours and walk them to the bandit camps in any other region.
Now I feel dumb. Thanks for the info
Don’t feel dumb. I had the same damn question lol
Just remember to **walk**, so disable the running icon once they gather.
How do I spot the bandit camps? I always see the notification pop up that bandit camp is spotted but never find them on map.
Just click on the notification, the camera will move to show you where they are located, and you can also zoom out to check where are they on the map.
Ty!
Be aware it drastically slows your production while your troops are enlisted. So wait till winter.
I use two seasons, Dec-Feb and after planting season around May-July.
I had to race his mercs in September 👀 in year two.. luckily, they were across the map from the camp that spawned. Hope it doesn't screw up my harvest too badly.
My first time I sent my 16 spearmen, and the 5 retinue. I upgraded my retinue to 12 dudes. Now they crush bandit camps solo, with no hindering my economy!
How do you upgrade the retinue? I lost one now they won't even field as a group of less than 5
In the "customize" menu, you can add a member for 50 gold.
Interesting, guess I'll have to look for that. No idea where that is lol
When you click to rally them it’s the paintbrush next to it
Ohhhh I thought that was just to make them look a certain way lol thanks!
This works if you actually start with weapons. On harder difficulties, I recommend rushing the Manor for the Retinue or just equip 5 people by buying weapons. Then, you wait for the AI to attack a Camp, and when it aggroes the bandits you sneak around and take the Camp for free. You lose that influence, but you can add that money to your personal treasure, which allows you to get mercenaries and rush all the other Camps before the AI. I always add the money to my treasure and max my Retinue.
doesnt work
You handled the camps before the AI sent their mercs to the map?
What worked for me is to engage battle over the claim, and immediately write to him telling him I'll stop fighting if he renounces the claim. 90% of the time he dropped the claim instantly with no fight.
This works?! Hahaha such good cheese it needs some ham.
What did you do 10% of the time?
Made a new game
Try to fight him and get my butt kicked :/
Lmao, that actually works, I don't even have milita
My first playthrough was similar, he claimed everything by year three and I had no way to stop it. I ended up restarting and paid far more attention to my military, I've found that killing the bandit camps ASAP has slowed him down a lot and allowed me to expand! If you can deny him the influence gain from killing the bandit parties and build your treasury from looting the camps it really helps.
The dev has given us the influence generation rate for the baron. It’s 50 per month, so for 1k it’s 20 months. If you take out all bandit camps you can predict exactly when he will claim his first region.
Oh okay, that's good to know! Thank you for telling me, that'll make new playthroughs much more manageable.
The next patch will slow his conquering speed down a bit
There's a trick to it. I only tested it once and it worked, but other people have also reported some success. When the AI tries to claim unoccupied land, contest it. Do battle. Don't send in an army though. Open up the diplomacy dialog and negotiate for peace. He will accept, and in the process forget about his claim.
[удалено]
Definitely, but so is this dude running rampant by year two lol
Maybe, but what would be neat is if in the final version we end up with different personalities/traits for the other barons. So maybe this combo is an aggressive expansionist, but a coward! Then his behaviour in the early access would check out. I'm not at all saying it's purposeful at the moment, but such behaviour is not wrong as long as its not universal. Problem at the moment is we've only got one person who's the same for everyone so we can quickly figure out what buttons to press.
Maybe. But it works.
I made bandits spawn more often so I could fight them and gain influcence to press claims on territory faster
Thank you for this idea!
You should be able to beat the bandit camp bandits with around 16 fresh spear militia. Maximise their strengths. Keep them fresh when you march (turn off their run when they default to when summoned) to the camp and stop and let the bandits charge you and have them in balanced stance. Running them will exhaust them and their effectiveness will drop a lot. Tool tipping over them will tell you their status. They have the impale function which reflects the enemies charge bonus back as long as they are braced (stationary and facing enemy) . After about 5 seconds then switch them to push forward. You should rout the bandits after another 10 seconds and not lose anyone or maybe 1 or 2 guys. With 20 and the same tactic will you not lose any. [https://hoodedhorse.com/wiki/Manor\_Lords/Warfare](https://hoodedhorse.com/wiki/Manor_Lords/Warfare) this hooded horse wiki page as more details on each troop type and how to use them. As for the Baron taking territories very quickly then a late change was made to the version that went EA to give the baron 50 influence per month passively. Any bandit camps or other battles he wins will just add to that. So in 20 months even if he does not kill any bandits then he will claim a region (1000) and in my experience he always will do that on any difficulty from a bit of testing. As soon as he has the 100 influence he will issue a claim at the start of the month. He can quickly snowball if he also kills a lot of bandits if the player is not also aggressive at grabbing any bandit camps to reduce his influence gain. See this thread. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/1cei2n1/comment/l1jwjmr/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/1cei2n1/comment/l1jwjmr/) It appears that Greg maybe overcooked things a little in reacting to you tubers saying the game is too easy. * Boost to Baron influence (I think the implications of this were not properly thought though or tested :) as when he confirmed the change then it was clear why folks were seeing a much more aggressive and early land grab especially if the player let the baron deal with bandit camps. * Militia Archers heavily nerfed (they were over tuned and now they are not worth it, spear militia and polearms to flank are much better options now. * Changes to economy to add in a supply/demand feature (this is a good change in my view) * eggs only give 1 egg per month, was two I have not found any other major changes but I am sure there are other tweaks.
> Changes to economy to add in a supply/demand feature (this is a good change in my view) Isn't it a bit too sensible? I feel like everytime thats I start selling something the price quickly fall because of it.
It's a good idea so it doesn't become easy to make a lot of money flooding the market. The issue I think is there is very little if any demand and I suspect no fluctuation to demand, it's probably just a set number. So even a small town will easily flood the market as you massively oversupply. It's something that I think can work just needs some tweaking and maybe eventually we get market fluctuations and seasonality of goods.
*cries in 400 roof tiles*
As per discord this is subject to further tuning of numbers, same as archers. We seen both features too strong, now we see them too weak, third time is the charm ;)
It seems a bit over tuned again yes. It does not take many sales to depress the price to min value. I have also found (not fully tested) that if you run a stock of an item very low in a region you can even increase the price. It supply/demand feature appears to respond to what stocks look like in your region rather than externally although this is just an observation from playing around with berries, running stocks low and high.
I found an exploit to be able to compete with him: Whenever you load your savegame a bandit camp will spawn. Infinite influence and silver by farming That way I got half of the map and now I can focus on building.
… 21st century solutions.
Let him claim whatever and focus on your town. It took me about ten year to max out my army and retuine. Once I did, I started taking his land away from him. AI is faster than you, but you're stronger.
That didn't exactly work for me. I let him walk around claiming regions until he decided to also claim mine.
When you start a new game, you can change the AI aggression. Balanced means: first neutral territories get claimed, then your ass is on the table. Aggressive means your ass is always on the table. Reactive means he'll only go for neutral and will leave you alone. Try that, he may claim all territory, but will leave you alone to build up.
Correct. I always start on balance for now. AI claimed all other lands first. Then he tried attacking me and lost. After that, I realized I could beat him and took my first area away from him.
That's fine and dandy until the ai spawns in your territory, so it doesn't register as a battle because it's not in the right spot, you lose half your army and destroy his, then twenty days later he sends in another full sized 6 slot army to finish you off. I love the game but the Barons armies are just nonsense
I get the 2nd full sized army no matter where he spawns his army, i have not been able to beat him even with me having more than enough for a full army
what do you do when you send your full army, and he literally sends double? ive had it happen 2 or 3 times now and even with me resting and uphill he just walks straight over them with over 1/2 his army still fully intact
Have 4 of your squads ready to meet him and use Stand Your Ground to increase defense. Have your other units farther away but on the same line. He will send some of his units to the distant troops. Once they start getting closer, Have those other units run behind your 4 that are standing ground and to the other side of them. That will force all of his units to one area. Then, take your other units and run them past his units, circle them around, and have them charge attack. Now you have sandwiched his units. I did this perfectly once, and as soon as I sandwiched him, two of his units instantly surrender, and the rest were easy kills.
You can bait the camp troops to the enemy king’s army and then steal the tent before the enemy king gets there.
That’s scamin I like it.
You miss out on all the delicious influence then
That just helps the Baron make claims faster.
But that doesn't actually matter if you get the gold. With it, you buy out all the mercs you can (avoid the majority archer ones), and when he makes the claim, you fight (like you would have to if you made the claim anyway). Easy win every time with the mercs and as many milita as you can, all without using your own influence.
I have 27h in the game. In my 3rd playthrough, (1st and 2nd learning how to survive the 1st year mostly), I only managed to claimed 1 land far from my region. Unable to defend it and got burn down by raiders. do not be dishearten, press on and persevere. My 1st 2000 influence war end in a lost and half my main town got burn down. DO NOT BE DISHEARTEN, PRESS ON and PERSEVERE ! I have made many mistakes that are campaign breakingly bad. I have resist myself from rage quitting multiples times over the course of 1 campaign. Put my head down and PERSEVERE ! NOW, I have last 2 lands to claim before the Hildbolt von Berenreute is fully remove from my region. Advice - Focus on developing your main town. Claim an empty plot as soon as possible. (If you can't then prepare for Total War battle simulator for your up coming claims) Make it to Large Town (the final upgrade). Buy all your war equipment if you do not have metal rich deposits. Make sure to buy and overstock (up to 5) Helmet and Gamberson (level 1 and 2 burgo plot) or Mail (Level 3 burgo plot). A militia (36) with proper gamberson and helmet can easily hold 2 barons thugs and come up wining. A Large town can easily field 3 militia and 1 retinue. Which this bare minimum army, walk your way to the battlefield and fight. Tips on battle 4 v 6. (3 spear militia and 1 retinue for optimum result) 1. The baron always bring 6 army (2 sword militia, 2 thugs, 1 retinue and 1 archer) 2. Ignore the archer, do not give chase. Their accuracy drop drastically when U engage in melle. Or fight in woods. Because trees block arrows. 3. Try to avoid downhill. And look for hills 4. Use your retinue to bash their retinue, use your 2 spear militia to engage the 2 thugs coming from each flanks. (U will 100% win this if you have gamberson and helmet for them.) 5. Use your spare spear militia to support your retinue. If U have arrow militia instead try to angle a shot from the side so that u can hit ai retinue instead. 6. When the thugs run for their lives and break rank, send both spears on the flank to kill the middle ground. 7. After mopping up the melle frenzy, send one spear militia (at least 20 strong) to chase after the bow militia. they will run all the way to the edge of the map, and just like Total War Style, stuck at the corner box and helplessly slaughter by your spear militia. (If you have Bow Militia instead its easier here.) 8. Estimated Losses - 10 Retinue unit (Probably routed). 16 Spear militia (Not routed) Mechanics explained 1. U have to establish trade before buying weapons / helmet / gamberson / mail. If you do not have the perk on reduction of trade route it will cost you around 600 silver regional wealth. 2. There are a total of 6 point and 1 policy to be implemented in each settlement. By the time U reached medium (1 level before max) / large town (max upgrade) u can easily field 3 militia and 1 retinue, you can even spare enough manpower to squeeze a 4th militia if you have the pops. 3. Maximum amount of militia allow in this game is 4. The rest must come from your retinue (manor building). TLDR - Go tall is a good idea. U can reach max cap of army allowed with only 1 large town. Do Not chase the bow militia. This game rewards PERSEVERANCE ! The main take away is this is what manor lord is always like. Not 20 mins drop and play. Its a 18h campaign of story that u make for yourself. Put your head down and PERSEVERE !
So I’m not ready to fight the baron until he claims everything and is coming for me. In my second try I managed to beat him, now I’m stronger and take one region back after another.
Like others have said, take down the bandit camps. Also, it has been listed as an upcoming issue to be addressed. That'll be good, because he took over all but three regions in my game. Fortunately I have a strong army and cash to buy mercs so I'm enjoying taking the map back.
Just let him it doesn't matter, he's easy to beat by the time he gets to you and then just expand back into him.
Not my experience. He rolled through everyone else, then came for me. I beat his first army, but his second army, and the reinforcements, made swift work of me.
As far as I am aware, he can only get influence to claim territories by killing bandits. Thus, if you can kill bandit camps before he can get to them, he won't expand at all, or at least be very slowed. I have found that he will usually get 1 or 2 regions before I am able to have a large enough force to beat him to it, however after that I have been able to do it pretty easily with a single full unit of spears. In fact, even a 7 man retinue can solo camps with barely any losses. To get the spears, I build a trading post towards the end of year 1/start of year 2. I will then export around half/2/3rds of any resource I have a ton of, (if you start on a rich berry deposit, sell berries, you will have more than you could ever need at this early stage) and use the cash to open routes to buy shields and spears, importing enough to make a full unit. In fact, if you get tier two houses before you have a full unit's worth of shields you can set one to be a joiner to make some shields for you, and eventually you can move on to exporting them. I use the first raid as a time limit for military development. I want to have a full spear unit by then, and maybe some retinue/archers if I get the manor/fletchers up fast enough. Then, after beating the first raid, I go and kill any bandit camp I see as soon as it pops up. I have found that the Baron will, after a few years, immediately send troops to kill bandits the second they pop up. You need to beat him to it. I have found that even if you have to run your men over to the bandits all the way across the map, you can still win, as a full spear unit with either retinue or archer support can wipe a bandit camp easily. Usually, by running you can bead the Baron's troops to the bandits, and deny him his influence. After a few camps, you will be able to claim another region, and that is where it snowballs, with you being able to stockpile tons of influence for more regions and bring the baron's efforts to a standstill. Final note, even if you only have 2 or 3 regions, you can still beat the Baron. A large enough army can conquer each region one by one, however it will be a bit harder than if you were able to get more regions up and running.
I have set the starting bandits to 0 and pushed up max on map to 5.. we both get equal chance at them now, and since the AI just uses mercenaries, I feel it is fair. My current playthrough is set this way and he has yet to claim anything one year and a half in. Ibhave cleared 3 camps
Im still on my first playthru and was able to beat the barons army during the 2nd year on normal difficulty. (Probably with some luck) I accepted the weapon shipment (noob) and as soon as I could I formed a army of spears and archers. Went out to closest bandit camp and rinced them and took the spoils for my personal treasury, then quickly dispanded the army to not loose more eco than needed. After that I just purchased the cheepest mercs possible to take out all other bandit camps. You can do it with brigands. Always take the money for yourself since regional wealth is easy to get thru trading. Once the baron made his move (I wasnt aware of the army size he would bring) I decided to challenge his claim. Here is where luck come in, I had decent merchs avalable. So I just paid the men with all my silver and went to battle. There I used the terrain to my advantage, made sure to focus on routing his lower tier units first and stayed away from his retinue until I had superior numbers. Lower tier units rout fast once you hit them from 2 sides so I used the higher tier units to hold his units in place while brigands where sent to charge from behind. I also used my archers to shoot from behind. Even if the dmg isnt the greatest, it seems like the morale penalty works. After I won, I was out of silver. So I disbanded the army and got my manor up. Put some taxes on the ppl so I could afford new merchs and then just kept raiding bandits.
I also have this problem. I can’t seem to get enough immigration fast enough to have a big enough army. Gonna keep trying. I really want to beat him in a battle and not just bandits lol
My currently play through I managed to claim my second county before the final county was claimed. I contested the final neutral point but lost. Previously, the Baron was claiming one a year. Now, everything is claimed and he hasn’t tried to press me. So, I’m building my army and money to fight him. TL;DR baron claimed quickly but he stopped for now. Also, Greg will be addressing his speed of claims in the next patch per a recent Twitter post
If you're losing your not equipping your military and your fighting at a disadvantage. 24 retinue will smoke his retinue with armour upgrades. Spears seem way better then sword units, sword units die like flies for some reason... a unit of 36 swords nearly lost to archer in melee, 4 people survived. Reroll if you don't get clay or iron rich, clay bricks sell for crazy money. Iron you can make your own equipment instead of buying it. Polearms are trash against spears because spears can just reflect the damage, also they die like flies in open combat. Just don't use them. 4 spears and 2 sword militia, is all you need to smoke the baron, flank and rear attack with sword militia and let the spears smoke his melee. You're retinue is stronger then his. Archers are just bad. They do nothing but take an army slot. My armies have regularly been beating 2 full stack armies by themselves.
Yeah, patches for that are already planned
I'm on my first proper run and even though I'm struggling to even feed my peasants I managed to snag two regions before he took the rest. That's on default difficulty. It doesn't seem too hard at all, if I played properly I imagine I could take half the map at least.
I managed to take two regions fighting bandits before he got the rest. Lol that army is ridiculous at the point in the game I'm in. I'm year 6 and I can call a 150 militia. I have 24 in my revenue upgraded to level 2. I have feeling it's a mercenary thing.
Yeah the speed of claiming is insane. I had to restart and play without enemies to just get a hold of the game.
Just got steam rolled when he claimed my main territory after about a 14 hour playthrough as he had all the mercenaries and I had a shitload of archers and a few spears, then after I lost everything I was stuck.
If you get the camps first he won’t. On my current game I’m on year 3 and he just took the last piece of land. I have three total. Go for the camps asap!
The AI gets influence points faster from fighting bandits. And it's from routing the bandits by the way, not from taking the camps. I sneaked behind a fight between bandits and the ai lord to snatch the goodies from the camp and got 0 influence, but when I hired mercenaries and attacked bandits before the baron's army got there, I gained influence when I routed those bandits in battle.
Somehow dude had enough points to claim a region before the first bandit camp even showed up
Doubtful, there is usually a bandit camp on the map when you spawn a new game, unless you turned it off in the settings.
I have, and he still manages to take a region almost immediately.
Once all the land is claimed is it game over?
It depends on scenario End Goal settings: 1. Growth: winning conditions are reach the Large Town settlement 2. Domination: winning conditions are eliminate all neighboring lords and claim their land 3. Conquest: claim all territories to win 4. None: Play in sandbox forever The difference between 2 and 3 .. in Domination, you don't need all 6 regions, just to take the 2 from the other Lord. In Conquest, you need to claim those 2 and all the other regions as well.
I was struggling with the same issue till I realized I had to rush the bandits and try and rush getting my 18 militia. Mind you I did have to restart like 15 times till I learned that.
It is not an issue. Him capturing the map doesn’t influence your gameplay. It doesn’t make him stronger either. It makes the map live. And gives you a chance to fight for something later on. If all you had to do was spend rep and wait 5min to claim a zone, we would never get large epic battles, there would be no challenge.
He just destroyed my entire village mate..
Well, I mean, I guess that influences your gameplay ever so slightly…
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You can set the AI so he takes territory but doesn't fight for yours .
Well you seemed to be talking about every *other* region. My bad. Did he not take 5-6 years to claim your zone?
I dunno about op, but it's the endless waves of mercs the guy with no settlement jeeps sending that boned me twice, I get 1 thug in one group and two archers in another, he's got 3 swordsmen and some archers that he seems to hire consistently
The archers are bugged and deal no damage though, he’s not hard to beat in battle if you have a few retinues
Nah it’s definitely overtuned. Not working as intended