Tribal Retinues Question

[Narvait]

Long story short - I ve returned to game after some year or so pause.
I played my dear Baltic pagans, waited for 500 prestige to accumulate, declared subjugation.
Went to intrigue decisions to call my 2,500 ‘free win squad’ and ... there was nobody there! Not even a button for raising tribal army!
I won anyway with help of allies, then went on reading.

So apparently ‘raise tribal army’ is replaced by ‘prestige or piety retinues’.

Couple of questions:
1) really no upkeep cost for them?
2) Can I accumulate millions of those things?
And...
3) what combos are the most effective - all light? Light + archers? Archers + heavy? Light + horsies? Cultural retinues for Balts are HI.

 

[ow592]

Light inf is nerved into the ground

Light inf is only good if you need the numbers for raiding or sieging. In battles they are crap.

If your cultural retinues are HI or spearmen, go for them.

 

[Narvait]

Well, as a lowly upstart pagan chief, this “for raiding and sieging” sounds like a thing!
So, I will just go for numbers first, then rethink.

Or, alternatively I may go for piety warriors “Sworn Defenders” (LI + archers) to use prestige for tribe upgrades. Hm.

 

[Dragatus]

Couple of questions:
1) really no upkeep cost for them?
2) Can I accumulate millions of those things?
And...
3) what combos are the most effective - all light? Light + archers? Archers + heavy? Light + horsies? Cultural retinues for Balts are HI.

1) There is an upkeep cost, but it's paid with Prestige.
2) Not quite millions, but you can have thousands. I had a 15k strong retinue in a game in which I controlled about a quarter of Europe.
3) My personal favorite is the one that's 100 Light Infantry and 50 Light Cavalry but if you have a HI culture the one that gives 100 Light Infantry and 50 Heavy Infantry is also good..

Light Infantry is individually weak, but highly cost-efficient. No other unit except Camel Cavalry will give you so much raw strength (before being modified by tactics) for a given amount of retinue cap. 400 LI cost about as much as 100 HI, but will actually do better in combat. The drawback is that they take up 4x as much supply limit and that can become quite a problem, especially if you're fighting in the more inhospitable regions of the world.

Light Cavalry can match Light Infantry in skirmish phase if it gets the good Harass tactics. It's lower in raw attack, but it benefits more from the tactic and it actually performs better in melee if it comes to that. Light Cavalry also uses up significantly less of the supply limit with the same retinue cap. Getting the good Harass requires an army that is composed of less than 75% Light Cavalry. The Hunting Party retinue (100 LI, 50 LC) achieves that and though it contains twice as many LI soldiers, as far as the cost goes 68% of it is for the LC. So it really is a LC retinue.

Heavy Infantry is comparable to LC. The difference is that it's about twice as good in melee phase, while having almost no strength in skirmish phase. I haven't run any tests yet to compare which one performs better, but theoretically it should be close. I personally favor the LC because it allows me to destroy feudal armies in skirmish phase where feudals are relatively weak. Basically if you use the LC retinue you're banking on defeating feudals before they can bring their strength to bear and by using the HI retinue you're trying to beat feudals at their own game.

Archers are trash unless you are either Welsh or English and can get the Mass Longbow Volley tactic in combat. A properly built Welsh/English Archer retinue is devastating, but for all other cultures they're worthless. The main problem is that the standard Volley tactic can't trigger if you have 40% or more Archers in your army. Archers have 1 morale and fall apart in melee so in order to make them work you have to destroy the enemy in skirmish phase. But since a normal culture needs to have fewer than 40% archers to get the Volley tactic it just doesn't work. English and Welsh get past that by having a unique superior tactic that they can trigger no matter how many Archers they have.

 

[Surimi]

The reason you can't have millions is that, as tribal, a significant chunk of your retinue cap comes from hillforts in your own demense.

Bascially, if starting as a tribal character, you want to max your demense limit, spam hillforts in all your tribal holdings and tech up military organisation. Within a few years, you can have an LI retinue in the thousands, which is more than enough to deal with other tribes and even small feudal nations. At kingdom rank, 10,000 is not unfeasable if you've been studying the stars for a few generations.

 

[iniudan]

but if you have a HI culture the one that gives 100 Light Infantry and 50 Heavy Infantry is also good..

Might want to mix some archer in there so you don't find yourself without shieldwall during skirmish phase.

 

[Woifee]

I still prefer to max out my demense und use the prestige to build there. With good martial edication zou can get 20 or even 30k demense troops. Quite enough to defeat Charlemanfe or Umayyads.

 

[iniudan]

But one thing to note about tribal retinue is that they become quite troublesome beyond a certain point without mixing in your cultural retinue, as they will leave you prestige/piety starved beyond said point.

 

[Narvait]

But one thing to note about tribal retinue is that they become quite troublesome beyond a certain point without mixing in your cultural retinue, as they will leave you prestige/piety starved beyond said point.

That is true, learned that almost immediately. But those pagan celebrations deal with it well, if you can afford peace and 50 golds.

 

[jwalche]

1) really no upkeep cost for them?

You pay with prestige. In the beginning, take all the high born women prisoners as your concubines and release them. Later, if you still need more prestige, you can do the same with your kinswomen and highborn women who want to leave their family court.

2) Can I accumulate millions of those things?

Not much in the beginning. I had to use neighbors' army a lot more, through tributary wars. It's not bad because your pagan neighbors don't raise the event troops either.

3) what combos are the most effective - all light? Light + archers? Archers + heavy? Light + horsies? Cultural retinues for Balts are HI.

LI + Archer, and build practice ranges to keep archers to above 20% when you loose some. For detailed tactics read this;
https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/4t8zb4/guide_how_to_fight_with_light_infantry/

 

[Narvait]

Thanks!

Another question - that LI reddit piece seems to be 2 years old, and some other user mentioned LIs got nerfed recently-ish? Is that still current?

 

[hajutze]

If the first reply to the thread is to be believed - yes.

 

[jwalche]

Thanks!

Another question - that LI reddit piece seems to be 2 years old, and some other user mentioned LIs got nerfed recently-ish? Is that still current?

I am still using it to beat down heavily armed feudal army with advanced military tech with only 1.5x of its size. I still hadn't chance to upgrade my demesne buildings much. Considering that LI costs 2.5-3.0x less, I say it still works just fine. And for bigger battles that each party brings over 10k, I find that I can put more (80+%) on my breakthrough flank and my LI+Archers can beat feudal army of the same size.

Of course, you can't just push your LI into melee or it will melt down. Use the link's tip and your LI+Archer will almost never engage melee stage, and its low melee defense won't matter since it won't be in melee defense. Not only it wins all the battles, it wins without a scratch and enemy army is halved. So after a battle, I don't need to chase down the enemy to finish it, instead of sieging its holdings.

But during early tribal period, if I have a really important and deciding battle, I would hire some mercs to defend left and center flanks, and put all levy and retinue on the breakthrough flank.

Once I go feudal, my feudal levy is good enough for the defense flanks.

 

[Riftwalker]

Light inf is nerved into the ground

Light inf is only good if you need the numbers for raiding or sieging. In battles they are crap.

If your cultural retinues are HI or spearmen, go for them.

when did they get nerfed? they're still better than heavy infantry at skirmish phase though right?

afaik, light infantry tactic of putting your whole retinue on a single flank and mixing with levy still liquifies most armies anyway...

 

[jwalche]

If light infantry and archers attacked enemy pikemen on melee, it is the player's fault and not the army's.

 

[Dragatus]

The only nerf I can think of is when LI had it's melee defense reduced from 2 to 1, but that's now several DLCs ago (it happened either with 2.5 or 2.6 patch IIRC). And actually morale is more important than defense for winning battles. Defense will reduce loses and helps keep your army in fighting form for the next battle, but morale and attack are what wins the battle you are in right now. Well, defense helps too of course, but it has a smaller impact than the other two.

That guide on fighting with Light Infantry was written before a LI + LC army was a possibility. It talks about how to use a tribal levy and the summoned tribal armies effectively and it does that well, but summoned tribal armies are a thing of the past now. As advice for tribal prestige retinue it is decent, but not necessarily optimal.

I will grant that if you use the LI + AR retinue, your skirmish damage output will be the best. Ignoring any tech bonuses you'd get 450 attack for 170 retinue cap if you get Feint tactic. This is compared to 500 attack for 220 retinue cap if you use LI + LC and get Harass. To put it differently that's 2.64 attack per point of retinue cap for the AR one and 2.27 for the LC one. So if you use the Archer retinue that's 16% more damage.

However, the price you pay is that your army will be 29% larger and you'll have more problems with attrition. Additionally the LI+AR army is weaker in morale and melee stats. The LI+AR retinue will give you 250 morale for 170 cap (1.47 morale per cap) and the LI+LC retinue will give you 400 morale for 220 cap (1.81 morale for cap). That's a 24% improvement.

In melee the LI+LC army will trigger the Raid tactic that gives a 240% attack bonus to both. You won't quite match a dedicated melee retinue in strength, but you'll do decently. If the LI+AR retinue enters melee it will only have the Barrage tactic available which gives a 240% offense bonus to Archers, but doesn't help Light Infantry. And Archers have only half as much melee attack as they do skirmish attack. I realize the plan with the LI+AR retinue is to never enter melee, but things don't always go according to plan.

Finally, we can compared tactic affinity. A LI+AR retinue would beat a LI+LC retinue because it can get Volley, which is a counter tactic against Harass. If the Archers get Volley the damage of the flank is doubled against any enemy flank using a Harass type tactic. But the situation is reversed if we look at how they do against an army of Horse Archers that use a Swarm type tactic. Swarm would do double damage to Volley and Harass would do double damage to Swarm. Basically it's a rock-paper-scissors style system of counter.

Feudal armies and other tribals for the most part have no Horse Archers, but they do have regular Archers and occasionally they will get Volley (though they are most likely to use Shieldwall). So that's an argument in favor of the LI+AR retinue. Nomads on the other hand will have LC and HA. This kind of balances out for Archers as they'll have an advantage against one and a disadvantage against the other, but a LI+LC retinue would go neutral against one and have an advantage against the other. So overall it does better. And finally we have the Mongols and their event troops, which IIRC are almost exclusively HA.

So to summarize, I think that LI+AR would actually be a little stronger than LI+LC most of the time if it can fight at full strength, but you'd have more trouble with supply limit. A LI+LC retinue is almost as strong in skirmish, superior in melee, doesn't have to worry about supply limit as much, and performs better against nomads. So I have to change my verdict from my first post. The Archer retinue isn't trash, but personally still prefer the LC.

 

[jwalche]

So to summarize, I think that LI+AR would actually be a little stronger than LI+LC most of the time if it can fight at full strength, but you'd have more trouble with supply limit. A LI+LC retinue is almost as strong in skirmish, superior in melee, doesn't have to worry about supply limit as much, and performs better against nomads. So I have to change my verdict from my first post. The Archer retinue isn't trash, but personally still prefer the LC.

I have been out a while. Sorry for bring up this thread again.

Dragatus' analysis is very through and I completely agree with it. I would still favor LI+AR for most of games because tribal retinue would mostly be mixed with tribal levy until adopting feudalism.

From the beginning of the game until when it matters, levy is much larger than retinue for a tribal army, and tribal army is mostly LI with less than 20% AR.

This is helped by having level II practice range, but it takes 4 years. (1 year for earth hillfort + 1 year for practice range level 1 + 2 years for practice range level 2)

By mixing LI+AR retinue into tribal levy, you can get 20+% AR much earlier and reliably, and can later build war camps too, without worrying about 20+% AR ratio. In a nut shell, mixing a small amount of LI+AR retinue can enable feint tactics for tribal levy and make it nearly twice stronger.

HOWEVER, if I plan to remain in tribal for the majority of a game, then AR+LC would be more useful. This is especially so for a North Korea game, since I will get a severe penalty on levy size while I can spam cheap earth hillforts and get a huge prestige based tribal retinue. AR+LC retinue's melee strength would shine more because I would be storming pagan realms with holy wars to get more earth hillforts asap.

That gives me a new idea. I can start a Norse game with following plans;
1. Build up AR+LC retinue, and build an earth hillfort on all realm tribal holdings.
2. When about to reach Military Organization Level 2 and 1~2 empires size realm, go North Korea mode.
3. With 100+ demesne tribal counties all with an earth hillfort, create maximum tribal AR+LC retinue units.
4. Adopt feudalism.
5. Enjoy a large prestige based AR+LC retinue. Raid with it and storm enemy castles instead of sieging it, since it won't cost a ducat to reinforce the retinue.
6. Or mix it with Cavalry or some cultural LC retinue for up to 75% LC ratio.
7. Maybe I can use the tribal AR+LC retinue to storm church and city holdings, while using new Light Skirmish feudal retinue to siege castles.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

As to the Baltic pagans and free squads, here's my approach:

Yes, tribal retinues cost no money, but only prestige/piety to purchase them AND maintain them.

But you can raise Raider Army, Zealot Army and Warrior Army with Marshal, Diviner and Steward respectively. The size of that army is initially small (no less than 300 though), but as you progress, it becomes bigger (up to 9000 = 7,5% of the levy size or 2,5% in case of raiders). However you have to use them within a half of a year for raiding or within a year for war/war against another religion respectively, otherwise you lose prestige/piety and the raised troops.

If you have reached the hero's rank in the Band of Medeina, you can call to glory (which means constant reinforcements during war). It's also very powerful, because you have your army at full size all the time.

As to which tribal retinues to choose, I usually choose only those that you can buy with prestige (Hunter Party (LI, LC), Trapper Party(LI, A) and forgot the name of the third one (LI, HI)). Two reasons why:

1) these three groups have similar composition and stats as the ones you buy with piety or gold; so no need to overlap;
2) it's easier to get prestige than to get piety, therefore, if you don't want to get negative piety, buy prestige retinues.

I prefer to have equal number of each type of the troops and organize them in separate flanks to maximize commander bonuses on each flank. I usually wait to reach Military Organization IV before switching to feudalism, because by maxing out my tribal retinue cap and having 9000-10 050 troops, I get to exceed my feudal limit and keep all my tribal retinues that cost no gold (just prestige as before).

 

[Ilion]

1) ...Getting the good Harass requires an army that is composed of less than 75% Light Cavalry. ...

Archers are trash unless ... The main problem is that the standard Volley tactic can't trigger if you have 40% or more Archers in your army.

I've seen comments along these lines before.

Do these and similar percentages apply to:
- the individual unit -- over which one has no control
- the individual wing/center of an army, over which one has some control
- the specific army as a whole, over which one has a bit more control

I would *suppose* that they apply to the individual wing/center of an army, else what's the point of the designers configuring armies in that manner.

But, in either of the last two possibilities, can't one just organize one's retinue armies in such a way as to stay under the triggering percentage cut-offs?

 

[Dragatus]

The percentages apply to a flank (wing/center).