Well, what do you know? It's Legacy of Rome dev diary day again! Today's topics are Liege Levies and Retinues.

In patch v1.07, you raise fewer, larger levies from your direct vassals (we call these "Liege Levies" for lack of a better term.) These levies are now handled separately from actual Holding levies; you only get regular holding levies from your own Demesne. The opinions of vassals of vassals are thus now mostly irrelevant; you only need to worry about the opinions of your direct vassals. Another benefit is that you don't get tiny little armies all over the place when you mobilize your realm. Liege levies also fix a fundamental balancing flaw in that you can no longer just keep raising little levies from all vassals as a war drags on (due to the portion of holding levies that was reserved for the liege.) The new Liege Levies do not reinforce at home while raised.



That's it for Liege Levies. Now, the concept of Retinues should be familiar to those of you who have played Sengoku. Basically, Retinues are your household guard; your elite core of professional soldiers. At the start of the game, most rulers are not able to employ Retinues, but it becomes possible as their total manpower (based on all the levies in their realm) and average Military Organization (a new technology) level increase. Over time, the Retinues turn into proper standing armies. The downside is that, as your Retinue capacity increases, your normal levies decrease in size. However, even at max tech, levies will still account for the majority of your armies.

There are many types of Retinues available for hire - including several unique cultural variants - though they always come in 500-man regiments with a commander of your own culture. Retinues reinforce in the field, like mercenaries, and when you first hire them, they start with 1 man. Unlike armies in other games, for example Europa Universalis, Retinues only cost maintenance while they reinforce. You are of course allowed to declare war even if you have Retinues (which are always standing on the map.)



So, why did we choose to add the Retinue system to the DLC? Why should you spend $6 on Legacy of Rome rather than a Latte and a slice of cake? There are many reasons, including these:

• Retinues make arranging your flanks and balancing your armies far more tactical
• Having a dependable standing army ready is strategically preferable
• They fit nicely into the overall military system in patch v1.07 with Liege Levies, etc
• History saw levy based militaries transform gradually into more professional forces

I should mention again that the whole Retinue mechanic requires that you own the DLC; if you don't, the new Retinue tab will be grayed out in the military view and the AI will not use Retinues either. However, if the host in a multiplayer game owns the DLC, all players will be able to use Retinues.

I think that will do it for today. Next week, I plan to talk about the new Leader traits and cultural buildings. Until then!

 

[dr eng1ish]

Looking quickly to the patch changes on a new game... levies have dramatically shrinked!

According to the ledger, ERE used to have ~10000 men available. Now it's only in the 1000s! Same thing for the other big countries...

Even at Doux level, what used to be ~1000 troops is now nearly half of that. Even levies from personnal demesne seems to have diminished. Is that on purpose (more historically accurate, I guess), or... ?



(the ledger migh be completely off, as often, of course)

Edit: Checked by choosing the Basileus himself, it's still close to 10000, not 1000. The ledger is stupid, and so am I.

The ledger used to be at least mildly useful for estimating how many troops a country had but now it is worthless. I am in 1220 so the big countries have at least 50k troops but the ledger still says they all have between 6-8 thousand. This hurt me one time when I wanted to take Alexandria, it said Egypt only had 900 troops but they actually had about 40,000 to my 20,000 (Doux of Athens). They must have changed the way it counts armies.

 

[Yxklyx]

Queen of Norway moved her capital to Orkneys - Duchess of Orkneys was elected. Now the 40K Norwegian Army loses 10K to attrition before it can board the ships. I can disband 10K before they are lost but unfortunately the game doesn't allow me to re-raise any unraised levies - that would be a very useful ability but then the AI would have to be coded to do this as well....

 

[tonkatoy5]

The ledger used to be at least mildly useful for estimating how many troops a country had but now it is worthless. I am in 1220 so the big countries have at least 50k troops but the ledger still says they all have between 6-8 thousand. This hurt me one time when I wanted to take Alexandria, it said Egypt only had 900 troops but they actually had about 40,000 to my 20,000 (Doux of Athens). They must have changed the way it counts armies.

It looks to me like the ledger now only shows the kings perosnal demense levy, as when i am the king of france i can raise 12k men from my personal and around 40k from vassals but the ledger says i can only raise 12,550 men, but maybe thats just a coincidence.

 

[The_Blind_One]

It looks to me like the ledger now only shows the kings perosnal demense levy, as when i am the king of france i can raise 12k men from my personal and around 40k from vassals but the ledger says i can only raise 12,550 men, but maybe thats just a coincidence.

Nope, it shows personal levy only.

So if the king only has 900 personal troops left, that's what you'll see on the ledger.

His vassals still have 40k left tho

 

[dr eng1ish]

But that didn't used to be the case. Before it would show an estimate of the total levies available to the King. I don't really get why it was changed.

 

[SirRobin]

I like LOR's liege levies but I think it goes to far.

 

[unmerged(471935)]

I'm a bit confused with levy numbers. It seems that things have changed quite a bit since 1.06 at the barony level.

Example: A Baron who is my direct vassal (opinion 100) and has a castle with a levy size of 1000. Empire Feudal Levies Law is set to Maximum.

In 1.06: When I raise his levies I get 1000 men (pretty sure that's what I used to get) and the little green/red bar on the right hand side in the castle goes away. The castle now only defends against sieges with its garrison - which is for example 1000 men.

In 1.07: When I raise his levies I get 500 men. The green bar is reduced but the castle still shows as having 1000 men (the red bar doesn't change) so any sieges against it would require 2000 men. So raising the levy didn't change the defense of my vassal's holding.

P.S. Not playing with the DLC.

I m actually considering the same think.But i think i have a clue on HOW the total available levy FROM VASSALS is calculated.


You multiply the levy with 0.5 for your direct vassals and vassals of your vassals and an other 0.5 if there is an additional level of vassalizasion
You then multiply it with the law modifier (say 0.8) and then multiple it with the opinion modifier (0-1) of your direct vassal

The law modifier of your direct vassal will apply for all vassals under it even if they are not the same type(church,burgers,feudal)

So If you are a king with a vassal Duke with just one barony and the duke(levy size700) has also a vassal one county count(levy size 500) that has under him a baron(levy size 300) a bishop(200) and a mayor(250) your total levies from this count will be

(Opinion of Duke modifier)x(laws modifier FOR FEUDAL LEVIES)x0.5x(700+500+0.5x(300+200+250)

 

[JonStryker]

What this means is that you can't hope that the AI raises vassal-levies in a province that you want to siege in order to have an easier time sieging it. Is this WAD?

 

[unmerged(93506)]

I m actually considering the same think.But i think i have a clue on HOW the total available levy FROM VASSALS is calculated.


You multiply the levy with 0.5 for your direct vassals and vassals of your vassals and an other 0.5 if there is an additional level of vassalizasion
You then multiply it with the law modifier (say 0.8) and then multiple it with the opinion modifier (0-1) of your direct vassal

The law modifier of your direct vassal will apply for all vassals under it even if they are not the same type(church,burgers,feudal)

So If you are a king with a vassal Duke with just one barony and the duke(levy size700) has also a vassal one county count(levy size 500) that has under him a baron(levy size 300) a bishop(200) and a mayor(250) your total levies from this count will be

(Opinion of Duke modifier)x(laws modifier FOR FEUDAL LEVIES)x0.5x(700+500+0.5x(300+200+250)

Thank you. I spent way too long trying to figure this out, and was stunned how difficult it was to find any info on the forums.

There really ought to have been a more detailed discussion of the new levy calculations with patch 1.07. I went half mad trying to figure out why half of all my vassal's levies were always inaccessible (had to triple-check for cultural differences).

Anyway, thx again.

 

[Mattobro]

Thank you. I spent way too long trying to figure this out, and was stunned how difficult it was to find any info on the forums.

There really ought to have been a more detailed discussion of the new levy calculations with patch 1.07. I went half mad trying to figure out why half of all my vassal's levies were always inaccessible (had to triple-check for cultural differences).

Anyway, thx again.

Your first post is a necro hmy:
But that is useful information, you can find it in the mod forums I'm pretty sure though.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Your first post is a necro hmy:
But that is useful information, you can find it in the mod forums I'm pretty sure though.

The info is highly useful, alas, it is horribly difficult to find it on the web.

The CKII wiki article on levies for example is from way back (July 2012) and does not reflect the changes brought by the complete levy overhaul of 1.07/LOR (October 2012) that were first presented in this thread's OP.