In this guide, I explained in detail how to build a good army and survive against bandits in the first year of the game.
First Year Survival Guide
This guide will show you how get through the first few years as well as how to have a well prepared army for use against the bandits and Barenreute.
The Beginning Months
This guide will mostly skim over the first months of gameplay because it’s not relevant to our objective. However a quick summary should serve to help new players. If you’re already past the first months, then skip to part 2.
When you first begin your game, you will have 5 families without homes or jobs, and lots of supplies that need storage. The first objective is to build a logging camp, to get enough limber to build your storage/housing. Once you have that done, you can begin building your burgage plots. Only build enough housing for 5 or 6 families because it may cost too much or take too much time. Step three is to secure a temporary food source and raise your approval so that families will start moving in. You can do both of these at once by setting up a forager’s hut and a hunting camp. your approval should start to go up after having a good variety of food. Remember, at some point between these steps, you need to build a well and a woodcutter’s lodge.
Building Your Army
Now that you have your starting village down, you’re going to want to start your militia. Luckily for you, you already have a weapons shipment of 20 spears and 20 large shields. These will come in handy. You need to try and get at least 16 men who you can conscript into your militia. In order to get them, you need to raise your population by having good approval and enough housing. When you get enough men for your militia, you’ll want to rally them and attack the nearest bandit camp. It should only have about 16 brigands in it. If you play your card right, you should be able to defeat them with no issue. After the camp is destroyed you’ll get a message asking if you want to send the money from the camp to your village or to your personal treasury. SEND IT TO YOUR TREASURY. after the money is in your treasury, you can send your militia home to disband it. while they’re heading home, you can hire some mercenaries to keep taking out other camps. Try hiring mercenaries for around 60 silver. Ideally they should have a spear regiment and some footmen. Now, you can start using the mercenaries to destroy more bandit camps. It may seem greedy but trust me, keep sending all of the money to your treasury. after all bandit camps are gone, disband your mercenaries.
Growing Your Town
Many of the contents of this section can be completed before or during the second section. This is part of the reason why YOU SHOULD ONLY SPEED UP THE GAME IN MODERATION. If you go too fast, you might skip over an important objective.
Now it’s time to start building up your city. Remember, you have plenty of time, so don’t rush it. If you want to try and grow you town’s economy, you can build a clay mine and a clay furnace. Since rooftiles are considered a “major trade” you should be able to make a nice profit from selling them. I would highly recommend this to any player who doesn’t have a solid food source, or who has a rich clay deposit. Remember to always make sure you have more burgage plates than you have families. Growth is essential. as your small village begins its transition into a large town, you’ll need to keep acquiring weapons. you can do this through trade or through crafting. In order to craft weapons, you need to level up a burgage plot to level two. The hard part is making sure you have all requirements met. A stable food source, good clothing, and a church are all vital to leveling up your burgage plots and raising your approval. The higher your approval is, the faster your town will grow. As your town grows you will have more and more people who need housing, food, and fuel. Forester’s Huts next to your logging and fuel supply will help, but you may need to build more than one Woodcutter’s Lodge to sustain your growing population and industry.
Farming
As more and more families come to settle in your town, you may find yourself running short on food. You can always rely on trade to make up for any shortcomings, but a more permanent food supply is very important. By the dawn of your second year you should set up some farmland to help your people get food. Farming is the best way to secure a long term food supply for your town. But Before you start placing down farm fields, make sure you check where the ground is most fertile for each crop. Once you’ve scouted out where you want to put your farms, start placing down some farm fields the key to having a sustainable farm is not to overdo it. It’s best to make a few smaller fields Instead of going all in at once. This means that your farmers will actually be able to maintain the farm, instead of getting overloaded with work resulting in a overall lower yield. Once you have your fields built in whatever beautiful pattern that you desire, you need to build a farmhouse so that you can assign people to manage your crops. This should all be done in the winter of your first year so that your farms will be ready by the time planting season rolls around.
By the time that your crops are fully grown you’ll need a windmill to turn your grain into flour. if you’re struggling with food, set your threshing priority to high on your farmhouse so that your farmers will turn your wheat into grain faster. this comes at the cost of field labor so you may not want to do this if you built lots of farmland. Next you want to build a Community Oven so that the dough can be made into bread for your people to eat.
If Everything Went Well
At this point, you’re well into your second year and the bandits are drawing near. This is when you start looking to make some more regiments in your militia using the weapons that you’ve made over the past year. About a month before the attack, you want to look at hiring some mercenaries again, to help you fight off the bandits. All of the money you made from the bandit camps as well as any taxes that you got should be more than enough to hire some good mercenaries.
The Attack
Okay, you’ve spent the last two years preparing for this moment and now the bandits are coming to strike. they should only come with two units of 18 brigands each making for 36 total bandits. If you did everything right, your army should be enough to absolutely annihilate them. Even so, don’t get too cocky. watch where they come from, rally your militia, and ready your mercenaries. the best way to defeat any enemy is by encircling their ranks. This can by done by having one unit give ground as another flanks around. But battlefield tactics are very situational. Nothing is guaranteed to work. just keep in mind that the bandits won’t set fire to your buildings if they’re being threatened by your units.
Moving Forward
Not that you’ve fought the bandits, you should have enough influence to stake claim to another territory. Do it. If the baron tries taking a territory CONTEST IT. keep your mercenaries around and try to grow personal wealth and build your army.
Super Secret Tip Section
Many of these have already been said throughout this guide, but if you take anything away from reading this, let it be these tips. Let me make mistakes for you so that you don’t have to.
- Build Lots Of Wells
At some point, your town may get set on fire. the only way to avoid catastrophic damage is to build plenty of wells around your town
- Take It Slow
At some point, you may get impatient during your game. you’ll want to just speed through everything and get to the action. Trust me when I say “I’ve been there too”. just please don’t speed through the game. If you rush through the first years, the baron will take the whole map before you capture a single province and you’ll struggle with resources/food. Just don”t do it. Patience is key
- Mercenaries Leave After a While
Some time after the third year, the mercenaries will start running out. why exactly this happens, I’m not sure. The baron might start hiring them for all I know. Just make sure that you’ve hired some mercenaries before this happens. the only mercenaries that stick around are the Wayward Sons. After this point the only way to grow your army past 5 units is to hire Retinue from other provinces.
- Mercenaries Have Unique Formations
Mercenary units (aside from brigands and archers) can form into a shield wall. This formation shortens their lines, and lowers their movement speed significantly. The benefit is that each man gains the defense of the men around him, with no penalty to damage.
- Archers Are Useful
Don’t make your own regiments of archers. I know I just called them useful, but trust me. Instead, hire the wayward sons. Archers can lower an enemy regiment’s effectiveness significantly meaning that they can help your units defend or attack.
- Spoiler
In the final battle, the baron has lots more troops. For me, he had at least two spear regiments, two footman regiments, three archer regiments, some brigands, and two regiments of retinue. All of which were mercenaries and therefore more effective than my own troops (except for the retinue).
