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!

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Am I understanding correctly that all your levies will be spawned in your capital once you call them? This would be quite a benefit for realms with holdings far away from each other, e.g. your troops in Jerusalem will teleport to your capital in France. I don't think that this an enrichment on tactics. :/
Wouldn't it be more nice if they were spawned in the direct liege's capital, thus less micromanaging but still a considerable amount of time to gather troops, making fast strikes with your retinue rewarding?

hopefully this

I hope so too.

Having your vassals insta-teleport into your own capital would be horrible. I always thought the gathering troops was an important part of getting a war started properly! The only thing you'd be left with in fighting a war would be to select your big insta-generated doomstack on day 1 of the war, and hurl it at the enemy's doomstack when it spawns on day 2 of the war.

 

[SewrRatt]

Since your vassals can have retinues also, if the realm is at war will their retinues just sit around in their capitals or will they attach to the liege's retinue?

 

[chrism2012]

Am I understanding correctly that all your levies will be spawned in your capital once you call them? This would be quite a benefit for realms with holdings far away from each other, e.g. your troops in Jerusalem will teleport to your capital in France. I don't think that this an enrichment on tactics. :/
Wouldn't it be more nice if they were spawned in the direct liege's capital, thus less micromanaging but still a considerable amount of time to gather troops, making fast strikes with your retinue rewarding?

+1 , my thoughts exactly.

Actually, the assembling of the small armies to a large army is one of the (very few) army operations the player can do...and a very realistic one.

I'm fully aware that many players agree that it's far easier to simply click a (red) button and all your war machinery comes to life in an instant, but shouldn't this game put at least a small effort into a realistic war setting?

Serathion's proposal would be a very good compromise: let your troops gather at the capital but with a longer time needed or raise the separate levies instantly and put them into march as you choose.

Or make this option/action dependable on the ruler's expertise.


I understand the reasons for those new liege levies but I'm against an automatic levy gathering.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Since your vassals can have retinues also, if the realm is at war will their retinues just sit around in their capitals or will they attach to the liege's retinue?

I hope they can join in too. It would suck to have a war between King X and King Y over over duchy Z where the duke of Z's own troops just sit around doing nothing.

 

[SplingeMcGraw]

I love that comment about a latte and a slice of cake. I wonder if it was aimed at people who complain about paying for new features?

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

I love that comment about a latte and a slice of cake. I wonder if it was aimed at people who complain about paying for new features?

I liked that one as well, mentioned something along these lines a week ago in the german subforum. I mentioned the cost of 2 Kebabs or a rather luxury one i once had in Munich.

Err, on the portrait DLC, there need to be beards just like others and Leviathan already mentioned. No beards would be worse than silly. Paradox South please tell us its just because its in Beta state.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

When does the DLC come out?

We only know Q4 2012

 

[Alerias]

Will there be a simple way for the player to select all ships easily even if you have troops in the field?

I'm asking because right now, I like to raise my fleets and give them a rendezvous point BEFORE I raise levies, because its a pain otherwise. Troops "trumps" ships in mass-selection, always. But with retinues I'm not going to want to disband, how will I easily make my fleet levies rendez-vous? Will fleets also benefit from the "1 fleet per direct vassal only" improvement?

How will laws interact with the fact that therell be bishops and mayors under your direct vassals? Will the size of the levies of my vassal, the King of Bohemia, depend on /his/ laws in regard to how much troops his bishops and mayors are supposed to give him, or will mine be taken into account?

 

[Alerias]

Are the max sizes of retinues, costs, how much manpower they require, etc... all moddable?

 

[brxbrx]

The game features sound alright. However I do have a serious problem with all the faces that are visible in these screenshots:

You said there will be a DLC for Greek and oriental christian faces. But if that's so, WHERE ARE THE BEARDS?????

You can't SERIOUSLY claim these are supposed to be medieval Greeks, when not a single guy on this pics has a beard!!! Not even the orthodox patriarchs have them. The priests and patriarchs even still wear those ridiculous clothes and hats, that look nothing like real orthodox priestly attire.
:wacko:

Well, from the pictures you showed us, they kind of look like it. All the bright jewelry stuff.

 

[brxbrx]

I hope so too.

Having your vassals insta-teleport into your own capital would be horrible. I always thought the gathering troops was an important part of getting a war started properly! The only thing you'd be left with in fighting a war would be to select your big insta-generated doomstack on day 1 of the war, and hurl it at the enemy's doomstack when it spawns on day 2 of the war.

Gathering your troops is all well and good, but the micromanagement of it is just tedious with large realms. Try playing as the HRE, and raising only the levies closest to Italy. You have to go through each province and press the levy button and then sent all the armies wherever you want them to go to. Now try raising all your levies, and sorting through the mess to send so many troops on one front and so many on another. A lot of times the game will start hanging and clicking and dragging rarely gets them all.
I think that armies should take time to muster at whatever location you wish them. Like maybe it would take a week to raise your levies in your capital, with a small army slowly growing as more troops find their way to you.

 

[Vindahl]

I still dont understand this new concept with retinues?
Today you can raise your own army, and even use mercenaries or your vassals armies... Then where do this retinue come up? Do we need yet another kind of army? Does it just not complicate the game too much?
At least that is what I am afraid of...

And I dont understand the way it works either! Sorry...
If I get it right, you can now hire one man some time into the game, until the tech is researched, who will grow to 500 men, while you lose those men in your own army... And these new retinues will now always be raised, but doesnt cost anything, unless they die?

 

[mackinator]

Will there be a simple way for the player to select all ships easily even if you have troops in the field?

I'm asking because right now, I like to raise my fleets and give them a rendezvous point BEFORE I raise levies, because its a pain otherwise. Troops "trumps" ships in mass-selection, always. But with retinues I'm not going to want to disband, how will I easily make my fleet levies rendez-vous? Will fleets also benefit from the "1 fleet per direct vassal only" improvement?

How will laws interact with the fact that therell be bishops and mayors under your direct vassals? Will the size of the levies of my vassal, the King of Bohemia, depend on /his/ laws in regard to how much troops his bishops and mayors are supposed to give him, or will mine be taken into account?

Click one ship, then shift+drag makes them take precedence over land units.

 

[Alerias]

Click one ship, then shift+drag makes them take precedence over land units.

Huh, thanks.

 

[tman144]

Will the new patch fix the COA bug? Where all the random COA's are red/brown and the first one you pick always gets the white horse on red/black background?

 

[lgonggr]

I'd buy the DLC even if it was only the liege levies. Can't wait !

 

[Alerias]

Are these professional armies going to be able to take on significantly more numerous levies? Or we going to see rebel rabble crushing the Emperor's Guard because they outnumber it by 15%?

 

[Ciccillo Rre]

I'm getting very enthusiastic for this DLC/expansion.

Apart from cosmetic things (like the purple interface we all want and the Byzantine portraits we all hope to be improved) I am worried by one thing: that with the new liege's levies system, which is most likely the most welcome addition in order to help Empires' management, we will get a lower variation in terms of CoAs that we observe on the clothes of armies' sprites.

 

[Arilou]

+1 , my thoughts exactly.

Actually, the assembling of the small armies to a large army is one of the (very few) army operations the player can do...and a very realistic one.

I'm fully aware that many players agree that it's far easier to simply click a (red) button and all your war machinery comes to life in an instant, but shouldn't this game put at least a small effort into a realistic war setting?

Serathion's proposal would be a very good compromise: let your troops gather at the capital but with a longer time needed or raise the separate levies instantly and put them into march as you choose.

Or make this option/action dependable on the ruler's expertise.


I understand the reasons for those new liege levies but I'm against an automatic levy gathering.

I suspect that rather than gathering in your capital, they'll gather in your vassal's capital.

 

[Imperator1993]

Will the DLC make the throne of the ERE shift more and not stay with one dynasty the entire game, stuff like coups and popular generals rebelling against the emperor and becoming emperor them selves? Also if it possible can Constantinople be connected with the ERE tital?