Retinue suggestions/opinion

[Arona]

I have few Retinue suggestion what would be a realistic.

1. All retinue units should be take 1 retinue cap per soldier, couse sounds weird that heavy cavarly has like 6 soldiers in one unit.

2. Retinues should be more expensive but cost less to maintain, couse establishing retinue should need new gear for soldiers, maintaning is wages and food.

3. If you disband retinue you should get back some money couse you get back your equipment and can sell them, maybe 50-70% cheaper.

4. Upgrade every Retinue unit, like equipment/ proficency, to improve retinue unit stats, would be nice to have chooce what stats you are going to improve.

 

[A1vin]

Most of these seem like decent changes that would make the game more intuitive, but..


1) Although 1 man 1 cost is more intuitive, I would guess the different ret. cost is to balance for the strength of the units (should a light infantry and a war elephant be equal).
It could also be to represent required supplies and “support units“ that aren’t in the battle themselves. Aircrafts in HoI4 uses more than 1-2 men, because they also needed maintenance crew, etc.

I guess they could adjust the recruit, maintenance and reinforcement cost instead.

2) Equipment degrades and is lost on the battlefield, so there should be some cost of reinforcing.
But I Agree there should be some changes with retinue cost. You might pay 40-180g for one unit, and then you still have to pay 1 - 4g every moth to reinforce. If the unit is stood down or killed, all the gold is lost.

3) Would be nice, but a lot of the cost would be non-refundable. It might even be that the equipment is not your to sell (but in this case they should be cheaper to hire/reinforce).

Retinue comes from the same word as retainer (contracted, hired). The Varangian Guard was retained by the Byzantine emperor making them retinue, but still I think they were responsible their own equipment.

4) Do you think of something like HoI4 (low level), EU4 (a few options), upgrade from light infantry to heavy infantry, more unlockable special units, or something else (like in endless legend or something)?

I don't think that there should be too much micro/customization with the ret. units. There already is upgrade possibilities with tech (and the generals you choose in a way), there are also some special units (eg. Longbowmen, Housecarls, etc.).


I would love some changes and rebalances to retinue, as I often ignore it until the end of the game. Sure they are good, but they are also expensive and when you hire them you have to be careful not to lose them. There have been a few times that I accidentally lost a lot to attrition, causing my economy to go to ****, or rebels/raiders/adventurers wiping out a new stack, wasting a lot of gold.