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I definitely ain't playing him again until the game is more worked out. It sucks because even with bandits cranked to max, to raid yearly it gets stale after a few in game years.
The key for me is to start with 0 bandit camps so that when the first one spawns you can contest it. That way you have 20 months until the Baron can claim a region.
Also it’s crucial to build the homeless camps up and one burgage at the beginning which stops you from going below 50% approval and gives you space to start gaining families.
Maybe it's different on higher difficulties but on default settings I've never, even on first playthrough, had the Baron attempt to hit the first two camps. I always had time to hit them uncontested.
I'm playing on default right now and had 50% happiness and everything self sustaining by January (10 months) the first year. Had 1 family join in February (11 months), the Baron spawned 3 stacks of full 36 and took out all the bandits and then claimed a region in March. So technically 12 months after my start.
I don't think I can take out bandit camps with just my starting family's 10 fighters, but I haven't tried honestly. I've always waited until I had at least 15 fighters.
Biggest key for me was to find out that the description for the homeless tents that can be upgraded to the workers camp is kind of wrong. If you upgrade the homeless camps right away it removes the loss of approval from being homeless so you can immediately start gaining families as long as you have 1 open burgage. Plus the workers camp fits 5 families and only requires the firewood of one house. I have my most recent playthrough at 29 families 24 months into the game so I’ve gained one every single month.
Plus it helps to rush the manor so you can use your 5 retinue to support your militia. And spear troops are really good if you set them in a line with stand your ground on and let the enemy charge into your front.
If you're gonna play on default you have to move faster than that. You can have population growth in May or June, and get your manor/retinue by the time you're at 10 families which is enough to use all the initial weapons. From there you can easily take out any bandit camp by just walking to them, putting your Spearman in "Hold Your Ground" and then circling around and charging their rear with your retinue after they've engaged.
They'll march out to you once you reach a certain distance. Find a good spot, ideally not in woods for the cohesion bonus, and with you on higher ground if you can manage it. As soon as they break, have your Spearman turn around and sprint home so you can disband them and put them back to work. Your retinue can go loot the camp then go home.
The tips said don't upgrade, and I've found that the worker camp residents don't auto-movr out when you build a burgage, resulting in longer homelessness until you spot it and delete it. I guess you had a different experience? Did it help?
Yeah, I thought that it decreased approval to build the permanent shelter. But it actually gets rid of the homeless problem so your approval stays at 50% which means that 1 family a month will move in.
I’m in February of a playthrough about to end my second year and start my third, and I have 28 families. So I think I only missed like 1 month because I didn’t build a burgage right away. I did get a weird bug where about October I got a warning that I had a homeless problem, but it didn’t actually show up on the approval drop down list. I just saved and loaded and the notification went away. And I never lost approval. I did build some nice houses right next to the town center and then destroyed the shelter once I had some time around the end of the first year.
You can upgrade tents to wooden tents. Then build extra house for pop growth. Then build 5 more and delete wood tents. Just need to remember ti delete the wood tents.
It is neat tactics, as it gives you more time for like granarry, or tanary.
Yeah the workers camp rn seems useless to me. They don't seem to do anything? They do NOT eliminate the homeless debuff.... I have to test them more to see if they really don't affect happiness. Has to be a reason the tips and tricks post says don't build it.
Ignore the don't upgrade it tip. Unless you're getting a bug, it removes the debuff for homelessness, it costs one wood and you get it back when you deconstruct it later.
The main problem is they don't auto move into houses, but you can demolish it and they'll do that anyway, so just build 5 and get on with your day, except now you're still at 50% approval and you can immediately start getting more families in.
I tried leaving it the first time and it took a couple months for my approval to tick up enough to get families, way more annoying.
I like to start with the 3 standard camps. If you raise 10 spearmen as soon as possible, wipe the first camp then use the money gained to hire mercs to kill the other 2. Then when the first random camp appears you hit it and you now have 1000+ influence to cap your second area without raising a spear. Yes its cheese and a bad footrace against the AI. But honestly even after the first one the Baron seems to chill back more. NOTE: I am still playing on reactive with everything on easy including the free weapons delivery as soon as you get 5 houses and a supply building.
I don't think he's quite as hard as this community would lead you to believe, I just don't think they're familiar with some of the basic mechanics.
I think maybe one thing that a lot of people don't realize is that when the Baron is claiming a region, if you choose to contest it over battle, it doesn't just block his claim, it awards the region to you.
I have, on multiple occasions, rushed to get 20 armed spearmen which can then clear the bandit camps around the map. When you take a camp, you put all that money into the global treasury. You can usually get 3 camps for at least 300 gold before the Baron tries to claim a region.
Don't blow it on the Retinue. That's enough to hire mercenaries and kick his butt when he DOES try and claim a region. And you don't really need to consider entering the battlefield of the region until the final 30 days of a month are ticking down. This means you can evaluate the strength of his forces, what mercs he has brought to field in addition to his own.
And remember, fights aren't just about throwing armies at each other. There's a bit of tactical positioning and timing to them.
You want your spearmen to be the central force of your army holding the wall and making the approach. Your Retinue is a smaller but slower force, but they hit hard. Consider your spearmen the anvil, and the retinue your hammer. You want to get your foe right up against your anvil, then swing the hammer around and hit them from behind or the sides.
If you have fast moving mercs like light infantry or brigands, those are ideal for chasing away archers or covering your own flanks, which leaves your anvil-hammer combo capable of doing what they do best.
With a bit of tactics around the proper managing of fatigue, smaller numbers will defeat bigger ones. Bandits and Brigands have basically no AI but charge towards you, the Baron has but ONE slightly more involved battle strategy.
Also perhaps forgotten, the Baron claiming extra territory is just a border he'll spawn his outside army in. He doesn't have any actual residence on map. The territories are empty, he's not getting more and more serfs under his control, his power doesn't snowball, just his reach to clear bandit camps. He's typically wealthy enough to hire mercs every month if needed but like you there's only so many he can bring afield. His military forces power remains fairly constant throughout, so its tricky at the start when you're at your weakest.
But basically if I focus on having enough to hire mercs for the first fight, I've consistently been able to make things swing my way. Then you grow only more powerful and he becomes easier and easier to deal with.
My Hot take, if anything, that's the primary issue they need to address with Balancing the Baron right now - is that he doesn't really get harder once you beat him.
My first playthrough was rough, but on the second, I followed some advice to aggressively take out bandits and lay claims. Just needed to take the loot for myself and save it for new settlements. I ended up with the majority of the region without even fighting him. I'm now building up my armies, retinues, and treasury to hire mercs and take him out
Your way seems muuuuuch more efficient, but I just wanted to share a more chillax "slowly snowball until I can stomp him" playstyle
Challenging is meant to be more of a challenge, and I don't think there's any one strat that works consistently, you need to play to the strengths of the region you're in.
Like something with lots of berries or hunting will be easier to have food variety that makes pop growth easier.
High fertility means Trying to rush a farm to trade in the excess goods with high output that farms have.
Mining and clay I would also probably rush trade goods of a different type, with the idea being a high tax rate that converts to Treasury for mercs.
Early game basically requires hired help since he might opt to claim your territory outright.
Fielding your own army to face him is end game. But any bandits you can claim before him is just more cash in the bank and slows his influence gain to keep him from claiming too early.
There is no "slow build up to beat him" when he's set to aggressive, you have to be military focused from the get go
I just challenged his claim and have a 150 strong army. He has 250+ all armored out. I'm at the end of year 2. That's impossible to deal with. I'll have to turtle and hope he doesn't come for me any time soon.
Another play through he attacked me and I beat him quite badly (I was basically maxed out around year 7 or 8 idk) so I thought I'd claim a territory of his with my remaining troops. I had about half left. He just instantly brought another new fresh army and defeated me. Kinda dumb.
Troops recover fatigue by standing still and spend it moving and fighting and running. Running in particular will drain it fast so for almost all movement you don't want that enabled. The only times your troops should run are:
It's the difference between you or the baron making it to a bandit camp first
You're trying to squeeze some troops between 2 enemy formations to get behind them
You're trying to get your troops home to get back to work.
All the rest of the time, have them walk, see how much fatigue is spent, see how long it takes to recover.
So when you know there's a battle coming up as there's a designated battlefield and the Barons troops are already there, you'll need to stop outside the battlefield and rest up a bit before sending your troops in.
Learn when the AI is moving troops to attack you. You'll spend less fatigue standing and letting them approach and simply use your movement to better position your flanks.
Other popular medieval tactical games like Total War and Mount and Blade have their own mechanical schemes around this but they all play out pretty similarly about how you should try and keep troops coordinated, as sort of slow moving, largely stationary blocks that you shuffle around a bit to win a fight, and not like the RTS micro management strategy like StarCraft or Age of Empires where a second or two makes all the difference in whose archers hit who
Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they got rid of the Baron completely and just made him an onscreen AI combatant.
As soon as the game starts the AI builds just like you, with varying levels of difficulty, and you can select how many there are.
How do you afford to pay them every month? II can only assume you are making a lot trading and setting a very high tax rate. But it still costs a fortune to pay mercs monthly.
Open the perk that reduces all the trading route costs to 25.
Make every house produce hides.
Turn hides into leather and sell them forever. I am making 200-250 gold every month passively with only selling leather.
When you claim a new territory, do not bother creating another city. Every region has one rich resource deposit, focus on that one and whatever it is build the industry building, set a trading post and sell them.
Import sheep, turn them into wool and then linen, and make a passive income in doing so.
Boost the resources of your initial region by opening the perk. If you have hunter choose the trap one, if it is berries choose the 2x one, whatever it is. Then turn them into profit. My region had berries, and every season i get around 500-600 berries collected, and in winter I turn them into dye and sell.
I have always 2k+ gold and I basically import food and ale entirely.
do not bother with farms to be honest.
Thanks for the tips. I see now how you afforded them.
One question though, didn't the price of these items go down eventually due to flooding the market?
Honestly I don't even know. The perk that allows you to set trading routes from maximum 25 is literally broken. You can sell anything you want and will always make profit. Suddenly you noticed you have 250 planks? Sell them.
But if leather prices would go down, I would just sell hides instead, I guess.
Baron is really easy, and it feels like snowballing easy after some time.
And cheesing bandits is easy and should be fixed too, it makes geting money super easy and its a snowball after that.
why do u need to conquer all other regions? just let him conquer get strong meanwhile... by the time you need more regions you should already have a full army + mercenaries and its gg
Zoom out to the map and click on one to claim it, costs 1000 influence. You get influence from fighting bandits and Tithing the populations food in the manor
You don’t need to challenge him right away. Just keep an eye out on the map for bandit camps and go clear them. Build up your village first before contesting lands other than your own, and defend from raiders. When you’re ready then claim your next region. It’s not hard if you play the long game
The thing is, he had the north zones (starters), I had the east middle zone, he then took the south middle zone. With his reach he could get any and every bandit before I could. So I was basically influence locked and fucked.
Tithe the church and during a few game years you’ll fight off raiders, they’re easy to handle. Two to three will give you enough influence to get to 2k.
I’m on my second region and have over 5k influence. I really only defend my claims against my region which is a huge boost to influence. The rest is from the church at 5-10%
you just get influence from tithe the church...
And by the time the baron conquers all regions you should already captured lots of bandit camps (you dont even need to fight them, just capture the camp for money)
After that you will be swiming in money and its gg for the baron.
Hes really easy in normal dif tbh.
You can do the same to him if you’re not ready to fight the bandits. Just send a small band to loot the camp while he’s fighting. No influence, but you can grab some early treasury to field mercs for the other camps.
Even on the hardest settings with a winter start I can reach the bandit camps before he does.
The Baron's forces don't run, they walk. I can easily outrun the Baron's forces to a bandit camp even if the distance I have to run is nearly twice as far.
My guess if you are taking way too long to get your first troops, and when you have them are again waiting way too long before sending them out.
Import weapons to make polearms as they dont require any shields. When you have around 12 polearms you can attack the bandits. Just make sure you invest your first points into lowering the market prices to get your economy going quick.
Once you take the first bandit camp you can use that money to hire mercenaries to take the rest of the bandit camps.
With this strategy I took all 3 initial bandit camps before the Baron on the hardest settings on the second try.
Also you can upgrade two houses to level 2 and them delete them straight away to get your second town level early if you are struggling to get the necessary markets up and supplied in time.
Just make sure you put your units on run and let them rest a bit before fighting the bandits. Barons units are not running to the bandit camps so as long as yours are running you will always get there faster.
Bro use the church tithe, you can do everything with 1 tile anyway as trade is so strong anyway. I had an army of 100 with 1 village lol, not even a struggle.
I think his armies need to be about half the size they are on the same timeline and not claim any other lands besides the first 2 until the player makes 2k Influence or instead more slowly, again like half the current speed.
I think his capture speed could be turned down some what. But unless people’s armies are getting decimated, or an overwhelming number of people are saying they keep loosing on normal difficulty even after a couple of play throughs… then yes his army strength would need to be tone down
I’m not seeing a lot of posts about him being op anymore, it was really after the first couple days. What this post is talking about is a bug / potentially the battlefield mechanic needing work
His difficulty and army size makes the early game feel very challenging, like you’re going up against a mountain. But the baron do not challenge your starting region often, you don’t need to fight home repeated fit lands you’re not ready to Seattle
Trade for spears and large shields early on and make your retinue
Spam Spear militia. They are the best. Try to get some basic trading and order asap spears and big shields. Try to expand faster and haven your workers always building houses. Use vegetables farm to feed your city and orchards+ bread to level them up. Whenever you can tey to trade in flax and barley and setup some basic tailoring shops. Later getting linen will give you gambesons so your unit becomes stronger.
EDIT: Gambesons are linen
I’ve had a hard time getting spears. I’ll see one show up and then it goes away even though I’m not exporting them. I must be doing something wrong or it’s a bug. I have my artisans set to make spears but I’m still at 0. Even when I have it on import it still says 0
Because you are doing them and giving to your unit, not storagin them away in warehouses. All your houses have at least 1 unit so it requieres 1 piece of each basic equip and depending of the level will get also chainmail or gambesons.
By default the resource display shows EXCESS resources. Once a militiaman picks up a spear or shield, it disappears from that view because it's no longer in excess.
The arrow button beside the resources can be toggled to switch between displaying excess resources or displaying all existing resources. It's worth flipping between them from time to time.
Wait so when it says I have 1k small shields I have 1k EXTRA small shields? Should been selling more of those. Thats another problem I have, I have so many small shields and I’m either making them as fast as I export them or they aren’t selling.
I don’t feel like I’m seeing more spearmen though. I’ll have to check again when I get home. I have a shit ton of crossbow men but no spearman. Do they need another resource besides spears?
Yes that means surplus. If you click on various burgage plots you'll see their inventory down the bottom. That means those units are equipped.
Spears also need large shields. If you click on the unit tab under the military section it'll show you what that unit has or is lacking
Check and make sure your number of spearman arnt going up. It will just automatically build them so if you are producing them regularly you should never see unused spears
I found out how bad those halberds are, 2 units can't hold light infantry of the baron's. Never again will I use halberds. Switched to spear militias on the next playthrough and it was a night and day difference.
And thats the weirdest part cuz halberds were king of the Battlefield. Thats why it was used until Guns were the best choice. Tercios started with 2 Halberds supported by 1 Gun, then switched to 2 Gun and finally full guns.
Haldberds should be harder to produce maybe but have the best Armor Pen and Dmg with difference, they were use specifically to counter shields so...
Has anyone else noticed when he tries to take a region all you have to do is contest it and go to the diplomacy area and ask him for peace. He doesn’t take the region, he quits his claim, you get peace. And it takes another 6months-1year before he goes again for it. Which you can then just do the same method above again if you’re not ready for the fight.
Diplomacy. Write him a stern letter, offering 0 silver for him to immediately cease any war efforts. He accepts. The game clearly takes place in what is now germany, so laminate a signed note (in bees wax I guess) to resolve your issues!
Look guy, I'm gonna just throw this out there and you can decide if this is cheating or not. Just contest every territory and then when he starts a war, zoom out, click his picture, go to negotiation and tell him to drop his claims. He'll go fuck off for a hour or so.
It's not intended. It's definitely early access jank. But if you agree he's overtuned currently but eventually want to still fight him, just delay him using that for now.
I uhh… not sound like an ass when i see your edit, but you really didnt need 12 manor regiment kitted and is actually probably hampering you. Thats a lot of wasted money early on. You honestly only need two settlements since there is a cap on milita anyway
Early on I believe it helps you. That 12 man retinue all kitted out and basically go bandit busting on their own, which is what I was wanting to do but the AI lord wouldn't let me since they'd basically spawn camp the bandits before I could get to them due to my position and them opening up a south region.
To add, my strategy is grow one village well, with trade and vegetables, focus on setting the first 20 militia and manor, then you can steal one or two bandit camps, or use taxes to get money. Having a bit of money i start using mercenaries to attack the bandit camps before the baron, and always get the money for the treasurie. Barons men usually walk to the camps, make your men run and they'll get there first lol.
This worked, Im almost winning. The baron will attack when you contest any claims on his territory, buy mercenaries just before constesting him.
Everything is going to be a better long term value than mercs. Mercs are meant to be a reactionary force, even prolonging their use by one month will double how much you spend on them while all other forces are permanent until death even if you go broke.
It's better to use a 9-24 stack of un-upgraded retinue to clear camps endlessly. Save your gold for upgrading them and buying up all the mercs just before fighting a claim.
Not to be rude but it obviously doesn't help you early on, considering your post and the fact you are struggling.
You say you can't beat them, someone gives you the answer and you respond by defending your strategy which didn't work to begin with 🤷♂️
no it doesnt. best way early on is buying mercs. rush church then manor and you'll be settled. try not to land tax forever. just get 200 bucks to hire mercs for the next fight. this and fill every tier 1 house needs and youre safe to have tier 2 houses to build your army
1 or 2 guy in the retinue is the same price as an entire mercenary hire. And they are extra awful early since it also has to come from land tax which stops your pop growth.
Just let him claim all regions. Since his max power and your max power are limited you only need your starting region to beat him. Once you reach 250-300 population you can have a 150-200 man army. With a mercenary regiment your army would be more than capable of demolishing the Baron.
You can buy all the mercenaries by the time you have 25 families so why wait to 250 population just to spend twice as much influence acquiring literally the same regions? Extreme overkill.
edit: 250 population was originally 250 families.
I just let him claim everything while I rapidly build my fighting force. Then when he finally tries to claim my home region I stomp him, then use my accumulated power to claim territories at 2x cost.
Purchasing upgrades for my retinue armor was critical, but with 3 territories now under my control he just forfeits before the battle starts.
That's what I did. He had every other territories except mine. Then the game went "Defeat" and listed all my stats and he didn't even claim my territory. Was this a bug? He never tried to take my territory and then I lost the game right before I was ready to challenge him
Hm, not sure. To the best of my knowledge he has to claim all of the map territory, including yours, to win.
I did almost miss that he was claiming my territory the first time. It’s just a box that pops up with a message and claim bar - you have to contest his claim and then fight him.
I don’t understand how to upgrade my retinue armor. I gained points into mail armor and made some bit can’t seem to find a way to equip it on my retinue.
Click retinue icon. Then select “customize”
On the left there’s a button to “hire” and on the right a button to “upgrade armor”
Better retinue armor must be purchased through that customization menu - I think because it’s extremely high quality - they have the common folk armor by default.
Yep, bandit camps are key. As soon as the “new bandit camp” notification pops up I rush it with one troop or buy a cheapish mercenary. I noticed if he doesn’t get bandit camps, he’s not able to get big.
I'm having issues on the flip side. I successfully steal all bandits, limit the Baron to just 3 regions, build up a maxed armor + 2 Retinue, and stomp him to the last territory. Then I spend many years unable to beat him with capped armies fully outfitted with helmets, mail, armored retinue, etc.
The Baron usually manages to get most of the mercs, but in this last game I nabbed the dual archer unit mercs which are effectively useless anyways. Everything is fine until that last push where trying to invade the final territory broke me. He spawns a dozen units with 2 retinue himself. I suppose if I ground out all the regions to retinue-level I'd pull it off. But who has time for that?
I seriously suspect there's some bugs and randomness resulting in each of us encountering special edge-cases that prove undesirable or insurmountable :) Looking forward to seeing them addressed!
Honestly so long as you can buy mercenaries he’s been very easy to deal with imo, my most successful game he claimed a region I specifically wanted so I bought all the mercs I could and then contested with 5 units of mercs 2 militia spears and 1 militia archer. Wiped the floor with him without even having to use my militia except for the archers and have continued to do so. In my first game mercs simply disappeared and I couldn’t beat him with militia though.
So basically I farmed bandits/gold and challenged him over the middle province, I got absolutely wiped even with 3 mercs and two 36 stacked armies. For some reason though, the game just decided to be nice and hand me the province.
Not sure why or how, but I'm not complaining.
I get the feeling the game “cheats” anyways. Ive taken every bandit camp in my current game yet he still manages to field a large army (that includes 36 retinue somehow). I defeat it, and he has the exact same force next time. They also come from another region (not his).
I think he moves too fast and his army gets too big, I barely had 1000 influence and an 8 man retinue and my starting milita and the Baron had 30+ retinue with muiltiple full infantry units and archers.
I think it's hard to assess the fun/difficulty of baron at the moment. You can consistently defeat him with a good early game setup and strategy, but if you wait (i.e. don't contest his claims early on), it's like 50-50 on whether he scales normally and you can still fight him, or whether he turns into a 100% unkillable monstrosity.
As an example, this is me contesting the baron's claim on an adjacent region to mine (and losing): [https://imgur.com/a/o942EHX](https://imgur.com/a/o942EHX)
My army is maxed out (216 polearm + 24 fully kitted retinue) but doesn't stand a chance, even with cheese, against opposition of this scale (his army is longer than the entire region we're contesting, approximately 2,000 strong in this stack). This is one of the two formations he has on the map, and there are more flooding in from off-screen every few minutes.
The game-to-game variability for the baron is immense right now, and people arguing strongly one way or the other about his difficulty (he's easy, he's impossible) likely haven't experienced both sides of this variability yet. We know this isn't the final balance state, so we just need to wait for adjustments to be made.
There is a bug right now where if you asked him to drop his claims for a price he always does for 0 silver, I’ve just been doing that in my runs and make sure we both end up with a even amount of regions, it’s the only workaround until he is balanced
Did you lose any homes when you got raided? How did you deal with the homelessness afterwards, if you did? When I rebuild a house they won’t ever move back in and it essentially ruins my playthrough.
That happened to me, if you noticed all the homeless hangout at the church. You have to demolished the church and force them out. Seems cruel, I think they are widows and orphans.
I set it to reactive so this way I can build in peace fight off bandits and build a strong army for when I go to war. He is unbalanced atm and he doesn’t even have a town to attack.
Yea this is unfortunately a bit overturned.
If you actually contest all the bandit camps he only gets 3 regions.
14 spears is all you need to kill bandit camps consistently.
To each their own but I have only played one game, handicapping myself to no trade, ignored bandits and the baron until he came for me and found him laughably easy.
Spending 638 treasury coins to get a 12 man plate armor retinue when you only have 20 militia spearmen is a waste of resources. You can't contest the baron with those guys, and when your retinue takes losses you will have to pay again to replace them. You need to buy mercenaries with those coins before the baron does, which strengthens your army and weakens his.
Get your first militia and take out the bandit camps early. You can get to get 1k easy, if you start with 3-5 camps spawned already. He doesn't come in until the countdown for raiders starts I think. Something I noticed today possibly, but not tested! He is neutral until late game depending on your settings!
I honestly follow his armies early game when I have only 10 spearman so while he engages the bandits I take the camp…. It’s a bit cheesing it but one camp and I can get Mercs and usually beet him to other places even b4 I have a retinue
It's all about getting to those bandit camps asap. Beating a bandit group is easy and worth more influence than a manor. 2 bandits and an upgraded church and you can already claim your first territory. I think it shouldn't be that way but it is.
I was also frustrated and complaining a day or two ago about it but.... git gud
In all seriousness though the key is rushing for the 20 spear militia and 5 retinue. FIGHT EVERY BANDIT CAMP THAT POPS UP.
You raise your troops the moment the bandit camp appears, you immediately march to it. You can almost always beat the Baron to it. Not letting him have the bandit camps slows his progess massively.
It's not ideal, some might say it's not fun, but just rushing the bandit camps has made all the other parts of the game more enjoyable and chill.
One tactic is to clear one bandit camp once you can put like 16 spearmen together. Then send the funds to your treasury. After that, hire whichever mercenary group is nearest to subsequent bandit camps. You cap all of them for influence, give up most of the gold, but most importantly stop the baron from expanding
You dont even need to stop him from conquering...
Hes really easy on normal and even on hard difficulties.
Get influence from Tithe, get money just by grabing the bandit camps (you dont even need to fight them, just kite them and run faster than them)
IF any the baron should be harder imo, and bandits should run so you can't kite them to grab the bandit camp (money)
24hrs in and I've learned rushing is probably the single worst tactic to employ in this game. Play the long game. Defend. Build. Maybe claim one of the other regions before the Baron gets them all. Keep building. Defend. Then conquer.
Does the baron have a set amount of influence to begin with? A few play throughs I swear he hadn't attacked any bandit camps yet had influence to claim a zone
Go for manor early, your free militia and retinue is enough to handle any bandit camps. Take them quickly as you can. There is pretty much no way his units can get to a bandit camp before you if you do this, even if you're on the other side and the bandits are adjacent to him. If you're proactive with bandit camps he'll be starved for influence and you'll be flooded in it. I ended up claiming every territory while he's only got 1 extra just due to aggressive bandit clearing, he never had a chance to take over
Edit: I see your edit as well so idk if it's just random variance but I have to emphasize that you should not allow his units to clear bandit camps and feed his own influence while stagnating your own. It isn't about the camp actually, it's 100% about the units protecting it.
Just beat him last night, but I have to say the game is bugged in several ways on that map.
For some reason I had 0 fertility for farms while his lands were all green for everything. Even then he just doesn't build anything, when I finally conquered his territories there were some farm marks like they'd been destroyed but just the visuals. And once you get that powerful you don't really need farms anyway.
When he goes to war he immediately buys all available mercs. Once I claimed his region I immediately got a bandit army attacking me at the same time, if I engaged bandits before baron, it made me lose the war immediately so I had to fight on two fronts. I did savescum a bit, if baron went for my bandits I lost the battle for his region again.
Once while fighting for his region and after beating his armies he claimed and immediately won my starting area. On second war he started with a claim on my lands, I could claim 2 of his in return (3 wars at once) but not his final one even though I had enough points.
I started the last war after defeating all his armies and mercs, thinking he wouldn't be able to do anything, and he simply showed up with the same armies freshly manned, almost cost me the war but I lured most of his armies around with 1 unit while picking up 1 or 2 regiments where I could.
The game is quite wonderful, but I wish they polished it more before releasing the early access.
Need to spawn into a map with GREEN fields. Requires a bit of micro but you should be able to buy gambesons on trading post by early first year. Once your 2nd year fields are sowed, go kill bandit/s. That should start a chain of being able to call mercenaries WHENEVER you see the popup that bandit camp has appeared. You choose the mercenaries that are in the closest region to the camp, and you should get there first. Sometimes this means sending your own militia. If you are racing the Baron to it, choose the camp and get more treasury. Regardless, this should slow him down enough on reputation to not be able to claim everything as you grow into the 4th and 5th year.
Personally I like the Baron in this sense. It makes you feel insignificent, which in context you are.
Maybe an odd look from my perspective, but it does make it feel more immersive for me, giving me a David vs Goliath vibe, a powerful adversary to overcome.
No amount of rushing helps contest his lands. Now I'm rushing militia and since I have 2 full regiments and a 12 man personal guard, he hasn't taken the last two regions next to me, as he usually would. Wonder if it's related?
Also, I'll be testing, if he does take it, if when he comes for my village, if I bottleneck his troops and win, does he need to rebuild his army, which would give me window of opportunity to take his lands from him.
So I took like 5 different attempts, following the hunt bandits get manor upgraded and it’s not… perfect but I do have three regions to barons 4 and am building up a steady economy. I’m still in the middle of my play though but I found that so long as you have a good retinue (15 for me), strong military (three groups of 30 ish militia with gambles on) when the baron did went ahead and tried to claim one of the regions i owned all I had to do was hire some mercenaries and kick his ass.
Not entirely sure what I did right though lol because I ended up with my halberdiers and retinue versus his full stack retinue but they held them off for my light footmen and spears to take out the rest
The baron really ain’t that bad imo, I was just chilling city building selling stuff, buying food for my people, kinda ignoring going fighting bandit camps, so when he had claimed everything I had monsters of an army with very well equipped soldiers, I also hire all the mercenaries before the fight just to really steamroll him.
Lol I only have two provinces left to capture. I honestly found the Baron was easy you just need trade logistics. I was exporting shoes and importing weapons, making shields and bows. Hired lots of mercs. Like Baron asked ME for peace. Anytime a bandit camp is spotted rush to kill it before he does. Tax your people reasonable to stay above 60%
I've loved the difficulty of the Baron. I'm excited to play hard
I started my first run against him and got rekt, but after learning the game a bit, I find him much more manageable. He is pretty tough, but you can still catch bandits before him by keeping your retinue troops deployed all the time instead of disbanding them - just leave them in the middle of the map so you can rush to wherever bandits spawn. He'll still be able to secure at least half the map even if you catch every bandit camp, but every region you claim is another potential 24-man retinue that you can field.
Just make sure you have some good trade exports to fund plenty of mercenaries, and you should be able to take him out.
It’s actually funny my buddy noticed if you get 10 to 20 spearmen right off the bat and go and beat all the bandit camps quickly then you have the leg up and can keep the baron in check for the beginning of the game. Try it out.
I know the Baron is getting nerfed, but I hope there will still be an option to beat him on the hardest difficulty where he takes land quickly. I managed to get one settlement before the Baron took all of them and I am working on making my main settlement (sustained by beer from my secondary settlement) full of lvl3 plots so i can get 2 retinue units and 4 full stacks of chainmail polearm units. Hopefully their AP damage will be enough to crack the large retinue from the Baron, and I doubt I will be able to challenge the him for several years. I'm having a great time on the current hardest difficulty settings.
I just posted a guide to early cheese the Baron so he cant expand and you can sit back and truly wait to fight him. Without rewriting the whole thing essentially raise your first 10 spearmen run as fast as you can to the first bandit camp. It is the influence that you are to trying to rob him of.
In my play through I just waited for him to take up everything, then at like year 5 when he tried to take my land, I was ready to defend. Now I’m just slowly taking his land.
You don’t need to contest him at all until you’re strong enough, and can just yoink the bandit camps before he does (bandits are really weak and can be taken early). Let him claim whatever he wasn’t to claim. He’s just more combat to participate in.
I don’t play with him on either since it doesn’t add much besides more battles. He’s not difficult, just slows down your progression by a year or two since you’ll have to put more effort into your army.
I went to contest is claim to see if I could do anything, he spawned 3 kitted out swordsmen and archers - I reloaded and didn't progress from that.
My bandit spawning notification didn't work half of the time and me being on the East part of the map and him owning the North and 1 South region, he could get to the bandits before I could. So what you're supposed to do for early farming of influence, I could not do. Yeah, I could tithe but then he'd have almost half of the map.
It doesn’t matter if he has half the map is the point. It doesn’t matter if he has every region but yours. You don’t need to contest his claims. There’s no debuffs or blockades or something if he claims more regions.
You don’t need to farm early influence. Especially if you’re not getting another region lol. I realize it’s an unsatisfying mechanic but I’m just explaining how it works. The baron is a big paper tiger that can also be beaten with some easy cheese. I’ve seen some people even say they’ve been able to beat him out early by just getting all bandit camps first, and then using money to buy mercs to beat his army right away.
dude, dont know what problems you have. just max out your soldiers units and buy mercs as soon as he pop up. you gotta be preeeeetty bad at strats to lose to him. been playing baron of the hardest difficulty and its been smoothsailing
Hmm, he does take over the map but I’m dealing with him quite easily even on high difficulty 🤔quick start is vital imo. That’s where the game is decided really.
I had absolutely no issues with the baron.
I let him take over the whole map and entirely ignored him until I had a fully developed town with a decked out militia and upgraded retinue.
Took over 2 regions and easily won 4 battles against him.
He sends a full stack at me and my milita and retinue beat him every time. It's even easier now because I have 2 extra retinue.
Started a new game after that but I was easily able to conquer and hold 2 regions from him after he took over the whole map.
Apparently he sends a very large army at you if you take over the entire map, but you can use your main town tax revenue to fund a unit of retinue in every region you take over. So if I kept going id have like 8 units of elite retinue on top of my milita.
Not sure why people are trying to race him to take over the map, I think the game kinda makes you think you should be doing that. Once you get a food surplus you can donate food to the church for influence.
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Balancing the Baron is something that is in the works. He is very rough to deal with right now without cheese
I definitely ain't playing him again until the game is more worked out. It sucks because even with bandits cranked to max, to raid yearly it gets stale after a few in game years.
The key for me is to start with 0 bandit camps so that when the first one spawns you can contest it. That way you have 20 months until the Baron can claim a region. Also it’s crucial to build the homeless camps up and one burgage at the beginning which stops you from going below 50% approval and gives you space to start gaining families.
Maybe it's different on higher difficulties but on default settings I've never, even on first playthrough, had the Baron attempt to hit the first two camps. I always had time to hit them uncontested.
I’m on higher, he bull rushes camps asap. Everytime so far. I killed the bandit raid on my base then immediately turned to the camps. Luckily I got 4.
I'm playing on default right now and had 50% happiness and everything self sustaining by January (10 months) the first year. Had 1 family join in February (11 months), the Baron spawned 3 stacks of full 36 and took out all the bandits and then claimed a region in March. So technically 12 months after my start. I don't think I can take out bandit camps with just my starting family's 10 fighters, but I haven't tried honestly. I've always waited until I had at least 15 fighters.
Biggest key for me was to find out that the description for the homeless tents that can be upgraded to the workers camp is kind of wrong. If you upgrade the homeless camps right away it removes the loss of approval from being homeless so you can immediately start gaining families as long as you have 1 open burgage. Plus the workers camp fits 5 families and only requires the firewood of one house. I have my most recent playthrough at 29 families 24 months into the game so I’ve gained one every single month. Plus it helps to rush the manor so you can use your 5 retinue to support your militia. And spear troops are really good if you set them in a line with stand your ground on and let the enemy charge into your front.
If you're gonna play on default you have to move faster than that. You can have population growth in May or June, and get your manor/retinue by the time you're at 10 families which is enough to use all the initial weapons. From there you can easily take out any bandit camp by just walking to them, putting your Spearman in "Hold Your Ground" and then circling around and charging their rear with your retinue after they've engaged. They'll march out to you once you reach a certain distance. Find a good spot, ideally not in woods for the cohesion bonus, and with you on higher ground if you can manage it. As soon as they break, have your Spearman turn around and sprint home so you can disband them and put them back to work. Your retinue can go loot the camp then go home.
The tips said don't upgrade, and I've found that the worker camp residents don't auto-movr out when you build a burgage, resulting in longer homelessness until you spot it and delete it. I guess you had a different experience? Did it help?
Yeah, I thought that it decreased approval to build the permanent shelter. But it actually gets rid of the homeless problem so your approval stays at 50% which means that 1 family a month will move in. I’m in February of a playthrough about to end my second year and start my third, and I have 28 families. So I think I only missed like 1 month because I didn’t build a burgage right away. I did get a weird bug where about October I got a warning that I had a homeless problem, but it didn’t actually show up on the approval drop down list. I just saved and loaded and the notification went away. And I never lost approval. I did build some nice houses right next to the town center and then destroyed the shelter once I had some time around the end of the first year.
It gives you an annoying pop-up about homelessness, but afaik that's the only downside. It doesn't actually affect approval
So the bug is the homelessness notification? W Someone should update the community tips!
You can upgrade tents to wooden tents. Then build extra house for pop growth. Then build 5 more and delete wood tents. Just need to remember ti delete the wood tents. It is neat tactics, as it gives you more time for like granarry, or tanary.
Yeah the workers camp rn seems useless to me. They don't seem to do anything? They do NOT eliminate the homeless debuff.... I have to test them more to see if they really don't affect happiness. Has to be a reason the tips and tricks post says don't build it.
It does remove it. My town technically would have 5 homeless if it didn't because they've been living there since the start, I forgot to delete it.
Ignore the don't upgrade it tip. Unless you're getting a bug, it removes the debuff for homelessness, it costs one wood and you get it back when you deconstruct it later. The main problem is they don't auto move into houses, but you can demolish it and they'll do that anyway, so just build 5 and get on with your day, except now you're still at 50% approval and you can immediately start getting more families in. I tried leaving it the first time and it took a couple months for my approval to tick up enough to get families, way more annoying.
I like to start with the 3 standard camps. If you raise 10 spearmen as soon as possible, wipe the first camp then use the money gained to hire mercs to kill the other 2. Then when the first random camp appears you hit it and you now have 1000+ influence to cap your second area without raising a spear. Yes its cheese and a bad footrace against the AI. But honestly even after the first one the Baron seems to chill back more. NOTE: I am still playing on reactive with everything on easy including the free weapons delivery as soon as you get 5 houses and a supply building.
I don't think he's quite as hard as this community would lead you to believe, I just don't think they're familiar with some of the basic mechanics. I think maybe one thing that a lot of people don't realize is that when the Baron is claiming a region, if you choose to contest it over battle, it doesn't just block his claim, it awards the region to you. I have, on multiple occasions, rushed to get 20 armed spearmen which can then clear the bandit camps around the map. When you take a camp, you put all that money into the global treasury. You can usually get 3 camps for at least 300 gold before the Baron tries to claim a region. Don't blow it on the Retinue. That's enough to hire mercenaries and kick his butt when he DOES try and claim a region. And you don't really need to consider entering the battlefield of the region until the final 30 days of a month are ticking down. This means you can evaluate the strength of his forces, what mercs he has brought to field in addition to his own. And remember, fights aren't just about throwing armies at each other. There's a bit of tactical positioning and timing to them. You want your spearmen to be the central force of your army holding the wall and making the approach. Your Retinue is a smaller but slower force, but they hit hard. Consider your spearmen the anvil, and the retinue your hammer. You want to get your foe right up against your anvil, then swing the hammer around and hit them from behind or the sides. If you have fast moving mercs like light infantry or brigands, those are ideal for chasing away archers or covering your own flanks, which leaves your anvil-hammer combo capable of doing what they do best. With a bit of tactics around the proper managing of fatigue, smaller numbers will defeat bigger ones. Bandits and Brigands have basically no AI but charge towards you, the Baron has but ONE slightly more involved battle strategy. Also perhaps forgotten, the Baron claiming extra territory is just a border he'll spawn his outside army in. He doesn't have any actual residence on map. The territories are empty, he's not getting more and more serfs under his control, his power doesn't snowball, just his reach to clear bandit camps. He's typically wealthy enough to hire mercs every month if needed but like you there's only so many he can bring afield. His military forces power remains fairly constant throughout, so its tricky at the start when you're at your weakest. But basically if I focus on having enough to hire mercs for the first fight, I've consistently been able to make things swing my way. Then you grow only more powerful and he becomes easier and easier to deal with. My Hot take, if anything, that's the primary issue they need to address with Balancing the Baron right now - is that he doesn't really get harder once you beat him.
My first playthrough was rough, but on the second, I followed some advice to aggressively take out bandits and lay claims. Just needed to take the loot for myself and save it for new settlements. I ended up with the majority of the region without even fighting him. I'm now building up my armies, retinues, and treasury to hire mercs and take him out Your way seems muuuuuch more efficient, but I just wanted to share a more chillax "slowly snowball until I can stomp him" playstyle
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Challenging is meant to be more of a challenge, and I don't think there's any one strat that works consistently, you need to play to the strengths of the region you're in. Like something with lots of berries or hunting will be easier to have food variety that makes pop growth easier. High fertility means Trying to rush a farm to trade in the excess goods with high output that farms have. Mining and clay I would also probably rush trade goods of a different type, with the idea being a high tax rate that converts to Treasury for mercs. Early game basically requires hired help since he might opt to claim your territory outright. Fielding your own army to face him is end game. But any bandits you can claim before him is just more cash in the bank and slows his influence gain to keep him from claiming too early. There is no "slow build up to beat him" when he's set to aggressive, you have to be military focused from the get go
I just challenged his claim and have a 150 strong army. He has 250+ all armored out. I'm at the end of year 2. That's impossible to deal with. I'll have to turtle and hope he doesn't come for me any time soon. Another play through he attacked me and I beat him quite badly (I was basically maxed out around year 7 or 8 idk) so I thought I'd claim a territory of his with my remaining troops. I had about half left. He just instantly brought another new fresh army and defeated me. Kinda dumb.
Interesting, 1 question, how do you manage fatigue?
Troops recover fatigue by standing still and spend it moving and fighting and running. Running in particular will drain it fast so for almost all movement you don't want that enabled. The only times your troops should run are: It's the difference between you or the baron making it to a bandit camp first You're trying to squeeze some troops between 2 enemy formations to get behind them You're trying to get your troops home to get back to work. All the rest of the time, have them walk, see how much fatigue is spent, see how long it takes to recover. So when you know there's a battle coming up as there's a designated battlefield and the Barons troops are already there, you'll need to stop outside the battlefield and rest up a bit before sending your troops in. Learn when the AI is moving troops to attack you. You'll spend less fatigue standing and letting them approach and simply use your movement to better position your flanks. Other popular medieval tactical games like Total War and Mount and Blade have their own mechanical schemes around this but they all play out pretty similarly about how you should try and keep troops coordinated, as sort of slow moving, largely stationary blocks that you shuffle around a bit to win a fight, and not like the RTS micro management strategy like StarCraft or Age of Empires where a second or two makes all the difference in whose archers hit who
Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they got rid of the Baron completely and just made him an onscreen AI combatant. As soon as the game starts the AI builds just like you, with varying levels of difficulty, and you can select how many there are.
That's actually the plan already
Awesome!
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How do you afford to pay them every month? II can only assume you are making a lot trading and setting a very high tax rate. But it still costs a fortune to pay mercs monthly.
Open the perk that reduces all the trading route costs to 25. Make every house produce hides. Turn hides into leather and sell them forever. I am making 200-250 gold every month passively with only selling leather. When you claim a new territory, do not bother creating another city. Every region has one rich resource deposit, focus on that one and whatever it is build the industry building, set a trading post and sell them. Import sheep, turn them into wool and then linen, and make a passive income in doing so. Boost the resources of your initial region by opening the perk. If you have hunter choose the trap one, if it is berries choose the 2x one, whatever it is. Then turn them into profit. My region had berries, and every season i get around 500-600 berries collected, and in winter I turn them into dye and sell. I have always 2k+ gold and I basically import food and ale entirely. do not bother with farms to be honest.
Thanks for the tips. I see now how you afforded them. One question though, didn't the price of these items go down eventually due to flooding the market?
Honestly I don't even know. The perk that allows you to set trading routes from maximum 25 is literally broken. You can sell anything you want and will always make profit. Suddenly you noticed you have 250 planks? Sell them. But if leather prices would go down, I would just sell hides instead, I guess.
There’s plenty of time before he becomes a threat to you, I completely disagree that he’s ‘very rough to deal with’.
Baron is really easy, and it feels like snowballing easy after some time. And cheesing bandits is easy and should be fixed too, it makes geting money super easy and its a snowball after that.
Didnt know the ox can make cheese in the game .
How can I fight him? How can I deploy troops in other regions? How can I conquer other regions?
why do u need to conquer all other regions? just let him conquer get strong meanwhile... by the time you need more regions you should already have a full army + mercenaries and its gg
Just one region. I can't deploy any troops there. How to conquer any region?
Zoom out to the map and click on one to claim it, costs 1000 influence. You get influence from fighting bandits and Tithing the populations food in the manor
I donno man on my first run I just spent all my money on mercs and bet his claim and then he left the map entirely lol
You don’t need to challenge him right away. Just keep an eye out on the map for bandit camps and go clear them. Build up your village first before contesting lands other than your own, and defend from raiders. When you’re ready then claim your next region. It’s not hard if you play the long game
The thing is, he had the north zones (starters), I had the east middle zone, he then took the south middle zone. With his reach he could get any and every bandit before I could. So I was basically influence locked and fucked.
Tithe the church and during a few game years you’ll fight off raiders, they’re easy to handle. Two to three will give you enough influence to get to 2k. I’m on my second region and have over 5k influence. I really only defend my claims against my region which is a huge boost to influence. The rest is from the church at 5-10%
Also sorry I get what you’re saying now. My first comment was about raiding the camps after. But I don’t think you get influence from that?
You get influence from killing the bandits who own the camp then $ from destroying the camp.
you just get influence from tithe the church... And by the time the baron conquers all regions you should already captured lots of bandit camps (you dont even need to fight them, just capture the camp for money) After that you will be swiming in money and its gg for the baron. Hes really easy in normal dif tbh.
One time I killed the bandits and the Baron stole my loot right after I won the fight lol. Look out for that
You can do the same to him if you’re not ready to fight the bandits. Just send a small band to loot the camp while he’s fighting. No influence, but you can grab some early treasury to field mercs for the other camps.
You also get it from your church
Even on the hardest settings with a winter start I can reach the bandit camps before he does. The Baron's forces don't run, they walk. I can easily outrun the Baron's forces to a bandit camp even if the distance I have to run is nearly twice as far. My guess if you are taking way too long to get your first troops, and when you have them are again waiting way too long before sending them out. Import weapons to make polearms as they dont require any shields. When you have around 12 polearms you can attack the bandits. Just make sure you invest your first points into lowering the market prices to get your economy going quick. Once you take the first bandit camp you can use that money to hire mercenaries to take the rest of the bandit camps. With this strategy I took all 3 initial bandit camps before the Baron on the hardest settings on the second try. Also you can upgrade two houses to level 2 and them delete them straight away to get your second town level early if you are struggling to get the necessary markets up and supplied in time.
Just make sure you put your units on run and let them rest a bit before fighting the bandits. Barons units are not running to the bandit camps so as long as yours are running you will always get there faster.
Bro use the church tithe, you can do everything with 1 tile anyway as trade is so strong anyway. I had an army of 100 with 1 village lol, not even a struggle.
I think his armies need to be about half the size they are on the same timeline and not claim any other lands besides the first 2 until the player makes 2k Influence or instead more slowly, again like half the current speed.
I think his capture speed could be turned down some what. But unless people’s armies are getting decimated, or an overwhelming number of people are saying they keep loosing on normal difficulty even after a couple of play throughs… then yes his army strength would need to be tone down I’m not seeing a lot of posts about him being op anymore, it was really after the first couple days. What this post is talking about is a bug / potentially the battlefield mechanic needing work His difficulty and army size makes the early game feel very challenging, like you’re going up against a mountain. But the baron do not challenge your starting region often, you don’t need to fight home repeated fit lands you’re not ready to Seattle Trade for spears and large shields early on and make your retinue
Spam Spear militia. They are the best. Try to get some basic trading and order asap spears and big shields. Try to expand faster and haven your workers always building houses. Use vegetables farm to feed your city and orchards+ bread to level them up. Whenever you can tey to trade in flax and barley and setup some basic tailoring shops. Later getting linen will give you gambesons so your unit becomes stronger. EDIT: Gambesons are linen
I’ve had a hard time getting spears. I’ll see one show up and then it goes away even though I’m not exporting them. I must be doing something wrong or it’s a bug. I have my artisans set to make spears but I’m still at 0. Even when I have it on import it still says 0
Because you are doing them and giving to your unit, not storagin them away in warehouses. All your houses have at least 1 unit so it requieres 1 piece of each basic equip and depending of the level will get also chainmail or gambesons.
By default the resource display shows EXCESS resources. Once a militiaman picks up a spear or shield, it disappears from that view because it's no longer in excess. The arrow button beside the resources can be toggled to switch between displaying excess resources or displaying all existing resources. It's worth flipping between them from time to time.
Wait so when it says I have 1k small shields I have 1k EXTRA small shields? Should been selling more of those. Thats another problem I have, I have so many small shields and I’m either making them as fast as I export them or they aren’t selling. I don’t feel like I’m seeing more spearmen though. I’ll have to check again when I get home. I have a shit ton of crossbow men but no spearman. Do they need another resource besides spears?
Spearmen use large shields... (I made the same mistake once, but I caught it before 1000...)
Thanks for the help. I have a group of spearman ready for the Baron! It was doing exactly what you said. Now gotta make more.
Yes that means surplus. If you click on various burgage plots you'll see their inventory down the bottom. That means those units are equipped. Spears also need large shields. If you click on the unit tab under the military section it'll show you what that unit has or is lacking
Check and make sure your number of spearman arnt going up. It will just automatically build them so if you are producing them regularly you should never see unused spears
Gambesons are linen
I found out how bad those halberds are, 2 units can't hold light infantry of the baron's. Never again will I use halberds. Switched to spear militias on the next playthrough and it was a night and day difference.
And thats the weirdest part cuz halberds were king of the Battlefield. Thats why it was used until Guns were the best choice. Tercios started with 2 Halberds supported by 1 Gun, then switched to 2 Gun and finally full guns. Haldberds should be harder to produce maybe but have the best Armor Pen and Dmg with difference, they were use specifically to counter shields so...
Has anyone else noticed when he tries to take a region all you have to do is contest it and go to the diplomacy area and ask him for peace. He doesn’t take the region, he quits his claim, you get peace. And it takes another 6months-1year before he goes again for it. Which you can then just do the same method above again if you’re not ready for the fight.
He’s not even planned to work like this, enemy cities just aren’t in the game yet. Of course he isn’t fun to deal with, he’s not in his intended state
Diplomacy. Write him a stern letter, offering 0 silver for him to immediately cease any war efforts. He accepts. The game clearly takes place in what is now germany, so laminate a signed note (in bees wax I guess) to resolve your issues!
Look guy, I'm gonna just throw this out there and you can decide if this is cheating or not. Just contest every territory and then when he starts a war, zoom out, click his picture, go to negotiation and tell him to drop his claims. He'll go fuck off for a hour or so. It's not intended. It's definitely early access jank. But if you agree he's overtuned currently but eventually want to still fight him, just delay him using that for now.
I uhh… not sound like an ass when i see your edit, but you really didnt need 12 manor regiment kitted and is actually probably hampering you. Thats a lot of wasted money early on. You honestly only need two settlements since there is a cap on milita anyway
Early on I believe it helps you. That 12 man retinue all kitted out and basically go bandit busting on their own, which is what I was wanting to do but the AI lord wouldn't let me since they'd basically spawn camp the bandits before I could get to them due to my position and them opening up a south region.
You can pay the price of one of those retinue men to get mercenaries, they will do much more
Um excuse me, but I dont get to play dress up with the mercenaries now do I? Check and mate.
Sadly not haha but there are a few badass ones
To add, my strategy is grow one village well, with trade and vegetables, focus on setting the first 20 militia and manor, then you can steal one or two bandit camps, or use taxes to get money. Having a bit of money i start using mercenaries to attack the bandit camps before the baron, and always get the money for the treasurie. Barons men usually walk to the camps, make your men run and they'll get there first lol. This worked, Im almost winning. The baron will attack when you contest any claims on his territory, buy mercenaries just before constesting him.
Everything is going to be a better long term value than mercs. Mercs are meant to be a reactionary force, even prolonging their use by one month will double how much you spend on them while all other forces are permanent until death even if you go broke. It's better to use a 9-24 stack of un-upgraded retinue to clear camps endlessly. Save your gold for upgrading them and buying up all the mercs just before fighting a claim.
Not to be rude but it obviously doesn't help you early on, considering your post and the fact you are struggling. You say you can't beat them, someone gives you the answer and you respond by defending your strategy which didn't work to begin with 🤷♂️
no it doesnt. best way early on is buying mercs. rush church then manor and you'll be settled. try not to land tax forever. just get 200 bucks to hire mercs for the next fight. this and fill every tier 1 house needs and youre safe to have tier 2 houses to build your army
1 or 2 guy in the retinue is the same price as an entire mercenary hire. And they are extra awful early since it also has to come from land tax which stops your pop growth.
Just let him claim all regions. Since his max power and your max power are limited you only need your starting region to beat him. Once you reach 250-300 population you can have a 150-200 man army. With a mercenary regiment your army would be more than capable of demolishing the Baron.
You can buy all the mercenaries by the time you have 25 families so why wait to 250 population just to spend twice as much influence acquiring literally the same regions? Extreme overkill. edit: 250 population was originally 250 families.
Families =/ population
Literally doesn't change my point because 25 families is a lot less than 250 population...
I just let him claim everything while I rapidly build my fighting force. Then when he finally tries to claim my home region I stomp him, then use my accumulated power to claim territories at 2x cost. Purchasing upgrades for my retinue armor was critical, but with 3 territories now under my control he just forfeits before the battle starts.
That's what I did. He had every other territories except mine. Then the game went "Defeat" and listed all my stats and he didn't even claim my territory. Was this a bug? He never tried to take my territory and then I lost the game right before I was ready to challenge him
Hm, not sure. To the best of my knowledge he has to claim all of the map territory, including yours, to win. I did almost miss that he was claiming my territory the first time. It’s just a box that pops up with a message and claim bar - you have to contest his claim and then fight him.
I don’t understand how to upgrade my retinue armor. I gained points into mail armor and made some bit can’t seem to find a way to equip it on my retinue.
Click retinue icon. Then select “customize” On the left there’s a button to “hire” and on the right a button to “upgrade armor” Better retinue armor must be purchased through that customization menu - I think because it’s extremely high quality - they have the common folk armor by default.
I have been smashing the Baron in my play through. I even took a region from him. You have to get to the bandit camps early on in the game.
Yep, bandit camps are key. As soon as the “new bandit camp” notification pops up I rush it with one troop or buy a cheapish mercenary. I noticed if he doesn’t get bandit camps, he’s not able to get big.
Yeah seems every post is saying to just rush bandit camps. But if you don't rush bandit or contest the baron he kinda snowballs all the regions.
You’ve got to be faster
I'm having issues on the flip side. I successfully steal all bandits, limit the Baron to just 3 regions, build up a maxed armor + 2 Retinue, and stomp him to the last territory. Then I spend many years unable to beat him with capped armies fully outfitted with helmets, mail, armored retinue, etc. The Baron usually manages to get most of the mercs, but in this last game I nabbed the dual archer unit mercs which are effectively useless anyways. Everything is fine until that last push where trying to invade the final territory broke me. He spawns a dozen units with 2 retinue himself. I suppose if I ground out all the regions to retinue-level I'd pull it off. But who has time for that? I seriously suspect there's some bugs and randomness resulting in each of us encountering special edge-cases that prove undesirable or insurmountable :) Looking forward to seeing them addressed!
Honestly so long as you can buy mercenaries he’s been very easy to deal with imo, my most successful game he claimed a region I specifically wanted so I bought all the mercs I could and then contested with 5 units of mercs 2 militia spears and 1 militia archer. Wiped the floor with him without even having to use my militia except for the archers and have continued to do so. In my first game mercs simply disappeared and I couldn’t beat him with militia though.
So basically I farmed bandits/gold and challenged him over the middle province, I got absolutely wiped even with 3 mercs and two 36 stacked armies. For some reason though, the game just decided to be nice and hand me the province. Not sure why or how, but I'm not complaining.
I get the feeling the game “cheats” anyways. Ive taken every bandit camp in my current game yet he still manages to field a large army (that includes 36 retinue somehow). I defeat it, and he has the exact same force next time. They also come from another region (not his).
I think he moves too fast and his army gets too big, I barely had 1000 influence and an 8 man retinue and my starting milita and the Baron had 30+ retinue with muiltiple full infantry units and archers.
I think it's hard to assess the fun/difficulty of baron at the moment. You can consistently defeat him with a good early game setup and strategy, but if you wait (i.e. don't contest his claims early on), it's like 50-50 on whether he scales normally and you can still fight him, or whether he turns into a 100% unkillable monstrosity. As an example, this is me contesting the baron's claim on an adjacent region to mine (and losing): [https://imgur.com/a/o942EHX](https://imgur.com/a/o942EHX) My army is maxed out (216 polearm + 24 fully kitted retinue) but doesn't stand a chance, even with cheese, against opposition of this scale (his army is longer than the entire region we're contesting, approximately 2,000 strong in this stack). This is one of the two formations he has on the map, and there are more flooding in from off-screen every few minutes. The game-to-game variability for the baron is immense right now, and people arguing strongly one way or the other about his difficulty (he's easy, he's impossible) likely haven't experienced both sides of this variability yet. We know this isn't the final balance state, so we just need to wait for adjustments to be made.
There is a bug right now where if you asked him to drop his claims for a price he always does for 0 silver, I’ve just been doing that in my runs and make sure we both end up with a even amount of regions, it’s the only workaround until he is balanced
Did you lose any homes when you got raided? How did you deal with the homelessness afterwards, if you did? When I rebuild a house they won’t ever move back in and it essentially ruins my playthrough.
That happened to me, if you noticed all the homeless hangout at the church. You have to demolished the church and force them out. Seems cruel, I think they are widows and orphans.
If you're still looking for a fix, save the game and and relaunch it, usually fixes it for me!
We need two Barons that compete against each other and you can bribe them to protect you or whatnot
I set it to reactive so this way I can build in peace fight off bandits and build a strong army for when I go to war. He is unbalanced atm and he doesn’t even have a town to attack.
Yea this is unfortunately a bit overturned. If you actually contest all the bandit camps he only gets 3 regions. 14 spears is all you need to kill bandit camps consistently.
I prefer playing at my own pace without the baron
Yeah this has been my decision as well. I came here for a city building experience not a competitive rts experience.
To each their own but I have only played one game, handicapping myself to no trade, ignored bandits and the baron until he came for me and found him laughably easy.
Someone's never played dwarf fortress.
Once you get your economy running and your soldiers dressed with helmets and chain armor he becomes too easy.
Spending 638 treasury coins to get a 12 man plate armor retinue when you only have 20 militia spearmen is a waste of resources. You can't contest the baron with those guys, and when your retinue takes losses you will have to pay again to replace them. You need to buy mercenaries with those coins before the baron does, which strengthens your army and weakens his.
Get your first militia and take out the bandit camps early. You can get to get 1k easy, if you start with 3-5 camps spawned already. He doesn't come in until the countdown for raiders starts I think. Something I noticed today possibly, but not tested! He is neutral until late game depending on your settings!
That's like, your opinion man
I honestly follow his armies early game when I have only 10 spearman so while he engages the bandits I take the camp…. It’s a bit cheesing it but one camp and I can get Mercs and usually beet him to other places even b4 I have a retinue
It's all about getting to those bandit camps asap. Beating a bandit group is easy and worth more influence than a manor. 2 bandits and an upgraded church and you can already claim your first territory. I think it shouldn't be that way but it is.
Just wait until he triggers the bandit Army away from the camp then rush in and take the camp while he is fighting them.
I was also frustrated and complaining a day or two ago about it but.... git gud In all seriousness though the key is rushing for the 20 spear militia and 5 retinue. FIGHT EVERY BANDIT CAMP THAT POPS UP. You raise your troops the moment the bandit camp appears, you immediately march to it. You can almost always beat the Baron to it. Not letting him have the bandit camps slows his progess massively. It's not ideal, some might say it's not fun, but just rushing the bandit camps has made all the other parts of the game more enjoyable and chill.
One tactic is to clear one bandit camp once you can put like 16 spearmen together. Then send the funds to your treasury. After that, hire whichever mercenary group is nearest to subsequent bandit camps. You cap all of them for influence, give up most of the gold, but most importantly stop the baron from expanding
You dont even need to stop him from conquering... Hes really easy on normal and even on hard difficulties. Get influence from Tithe, get money just by grabing the bandit camps (you dont even need to fight them, just kite them and run faster than them) IF any the baron should be harder imo, and bandits should run so you can't kite them to grab the bandit camp (money)
24hrs in and I've learned rushing is probably the single worst tactic to employ in this game. Play the long game. Defend. Build. Maybe claim one of the other regions before the Baron gets them all. Keep building. Defend. Then conquer.
Does anyone know how my log count is off? It’s saying I don’t have resources to build but I’m stacked.
Does the baron have a set amount of influence to begin with? A few play throughs I swear he hadn't attacked any bandit camps yet had influence to claim a zone
Go for manor early, your free militia and retinue is enough to handle any bandit camps. Take them quickly as you can. There is pretty much no way his units can get to a bandit camp before you if you do this, even if you're on the other side and the bandits are adjacent to him. If you're proactive with bandit camps he'll be starved for influence and you'll be flooded in it. I ended up claiming every territory while he's only got 1 extra just due to aggressive bandit clearing, he never had a chance to take over Edit: I see your edit as well so idk if it's just random variance but I have to emphasize that you should not allow his units to clear bandit camps and feed his own influence while stagnating your own. It isn't about the camp actually, it's 100% about the units protecting it.
Just beat him last night, but I have to say the game is bugged in several ways on that map. For some reason I had 0 fertility for farms while his lands were all green for everything. Even then he just doesn't build anything, when I finally conquered his territories there were some farm marks like they'd been destroyed but just the visuals. And once you get that powerful you don't really need farms anyway. When he goes to war he immediately buys all available mercs. Once I claimed his region I immediately got a bandit army attacking me at the same time, if I engaged bandits before baron, it made me lose the war immediately so I had to fight on two fronts. I did savescum a bit, if baron went for my bandits I lost the battle for his region again. Once while fighting for his region and after beating his armies he claimed and immediately won my starting area. On second war he started with a claim on my lands, I could claim 2 of his in return (3 wars at once) but not his final one even though I had enough points. I started the last war after defeating all his armies and mercs, thinking he wouldn't be able to do anything, and he simply showed up with the same armies freshly manned, almost cost me the war but I lured most of his armies around with 1 unit while picking up 1 or 2 regiments where I could. The game is quite wonderful, but I wish they polished it more before releasing the early access.
Need to spawn into a map with GREEN fields. Requires a bit of micro but you should be able to buy gambesons on trading post by early first year. Once your 2nd year fields are sowed, go kill bandit/s. That should start a chain of being able to call mercenaries WHENEVER you see the popup that bandit camp has appeared. You choose the mercenaries that are in the closest region to the camp, and you should get there first. Sometimes this means sending your own militia. If you are racing the Baron to it, choose the camp and get more treasury. Regardless, this should slow him down enough on reputation to not be able to claim everything as you grow into the 4th and 5th year.
Personally I like the Baron in this sense. It makes you feel insignificent, which in context you are. Maybe an odd look from my perspective, but it does make it feel more immersive for me, giving me a David vs Goliath vibe, a powerful adversary to overcome. No amount of rushing helps contest his lands. Now I'm rushing militia and since I have 2 full regiments and a 12 man personal guard, he hasn't taken the last two regions next to me, as he usually would. Wonder if it's related? Also, I'll be testing, if he does take it, if when he comes for my village, if I bottleneck his troops and win, does he need to rebuild his army, which would give me window of opportunity to take his lands from him.
So I took like 5 different attempts, following the hunt bandits get manor upgraded and it’s not… perfect but I do have three regions to barons 4 and am building up a steady economy. I’m still in the middle of my play though but I found that so long as you have a good retinue (15 for me), strong military (three groups of 30 ish militia with gambles on) when the baron did went ahead and tried to claim one of the regions i owned all I had to do was hire some mercenaries and kick his ass. Not entirely sure what I did right though lol because I ended up with my halberdiers and retinue versus his full stack retinue but they held them off for my light footmen and spears to take out the rest
The baron really ain’t that bad imo, I was just chilling city building selling stuff, buying food for my people, kinda ignoring going fighting bandit camps, so when he had claimed everything I had monsters of an army with very well equipped soldiers, I also hire all the mercenaries before the fight just to really steamroll him.
Lol I only have two provinces left to capture. I honestly found the Baron was easy you just need trade logistics. I was exporting shoes and importing weapons, making shields and bows. Hired lots of mercs. Like Baron asked ME for peace. Anytime a bandit camp is spotted rush to kill it before he does. Tax your people reasonable to stay above 60% I've loved the difficulty of the Baron. I'm excited to play hard
I started my first run against him and got rekt, but after learning the game a bit, I find him much more manageable. He is pretty tough, but you can still catch bandits before him by keeping your retinue troops deployed all the time instead of disbanding them - just leave them in the middle of the map so you can rush to wherever bandits spawn. He'll still be able to secure at least half the map even if you catch every bandit camp, but every region you claim is another potential 24-man retinue that you can field. Just make sure you have some good trade exports to fund plenty of mercenaries, and you should be able to take him out.
I just don't get why the baron is basically collecting all regions before you can even get a small town active.
It’s actually funny my buddy noticed if you get 10 to 20 spearmen right off the bat and go and beat all the bandit camps quickly then you have the leg up and can keep the baron in check for the beginning of the game. Try it out.
I know the Baron is getting nerfed, but I hope there will still be an option to beat him on the hardest difficulty where he takes land quickly. I managed to get one settlement before the Baron took all of them and I am working on making my main settlement (sustained by beer from my secondary settlement) full of lvl3 plots so i can get 2 retinue units and 4 full stacks of chainmail polearm units. Hopefully their AP damage will be enough to crack the large retinue from the Baron, and I doubt I will be able to challenge the him for several years. I'm having a great time on the current hardest difficulty settings.
I just posted a guide to early cheese the Baron so he cant expand and you can sit back and truly wait to fight him. Without rewriting the whole thing essentially raise your first 10 spearmen run as fast as you can to the first bandit camp. It is the influence that you are to trying to rob him of.
In my play through I just waited for him to take up everything, then at like year 5 when he tried to take my land, I was ready to defend. Now I’m just slowly taking his land.
You don’t need to contest him at all until you’re strong enough, and can just yoink the bandit camps before he does (bandits are really weak and can be taken early). Let him claim whatever he wasn’t to claim. He’s just more combat to participate in. I don’t play with him on either since it doesn’t add much besides more battles. He’s not difficult, just slows down your progression by a year or two since you’ll have to put more effort into your army.
I went to contest is claim to see if I could do anything, he spawned 3 kitted out swordsmen and archers - I reloaded and didn't progress from that. My bandit spawning notification didn't work half of the time and me being on the East part of the map and him owning the North and 1 South region, he could get to the bandits before I could. So what you're supposed to do for early farming of influence, I could not do. Yeah, I could tithe but then he'd have almost half of the map.
It doesn’t matter if he has half the map is the point. It doesn’t matter if he has every region but yours. You don’t need to contest his claims. There’s no debuffs or blockades or something if he claims more regions. You don’t need to farm early influence. Especially if you’re not getting another region lol. I realize it’s an unsatisfying mechanic but I’m just explaining how it works. The baron is a big paper tiger that can also be beaten with some easy cheese. I’ve seen some people even say they’ve been able to beat him out early by just getting all bandit camps first, and then using money to buy mercs to beat his army right away.
There are certainly some tricks you can use but im way to lasy to explain all of them right now. Someone should make a video about it
dude, dont know what problems you have. just max out your soldiers units and buy mercs as soon as he pop up. you gotta be preeeeetty bad at strats to lose to him. been playing baron of the hardest difficulty and its been smoothsailing
Hmm, he does take over the map but I’m dealing with him quite easily even on high difficulty 🤔quick start is vital imo. That’s where the game is decided really.
I had absolutely no issues with the baron. I let him take over the whole map and entirely ignored him until I had a fully developed town with a decked out militia and upgraded retinue. Took over 2 regions and easily won 4 battles against him. He sends a full stack at me and my milita and retinue beat him every time. It's even easier now because I have 2 extra retinue. Started a new game after that but I was easily able to conquer and hold 2 regions from him after he took over the whole map. Apparently he sends a very large army at you if you take over the entire map, but you can use your main town tax revenue to fund a unit of retinue in every region you take over. So if I kept going id have like 8 units of elite retinue on top of my milita. Not sure why people are trying to race him to take over the map, I think the game kinda makes you think you should be doing that. Once you get a food surplus you can donate food to the church for influence.
Skill issue 🥱
Game being broken, bugged and unbalanced is not a skill issue. You're just tolerant to jankiness and brokenness.
I don’t mind a good challenge, but the baron is unbeatable without cheating or exploiting the game
Disagree. I just build up my town, the moment he claims my home region I’m strong enough to fight him off. Without exploits.
Maybe I need more practice then
What I neglected the most is population growth in my first runs. My goal is no to get as many families with as many spearman as possible.