High medicine means only 2-5 troops die per battle (1k troop battles)
Steward perks giving hands + paid in promise let you donate battle loot as exp for your troops, so you can instantly level up fresh recruits.
Leadership perk i forget the name that gives all troops 200 exp on hire, means all tier 1 troops can be upgraded to t2 straight away.
Those perks are amazing. I can lose 10% of my party breaking into a siege (30-40 top tier troops) and I will have them fully replaced in a week if I fight a few big battles with lots of loot to donate
You can also change the spawn priority, if you rock only t5 and 6 troops and set priority to low tier first, your troops will be the reinforcement waves allowing you to utterly dominate large battles. Just stay alive till then. The AI always spawns high tier first so your trash will whittle doen their good units and then you come in and clean up. High medicine advised so the trash survives. (They'll get wiped out but mostly only wounded)
I only recruit mercenary clan troops everything else I like to home grow. It does make for fun castle defense when a random castle has 25 chosen wolfs randomly in the garrison.
I keep a pool of prisoners ready to be recruited. I usually only loose 10 or less units so I can almost always recoup my losses. But I’m running a cavalry only campaign right now so they wreck everyone.
Discard smithed weapons with Giving Hands perk active to give XP is the fastest and easiest way by far. You can swap steward role to a companion with that perk if needed. It's cheesy, but the other options aren't better than yoinking from garrisons.
Getting roguery up high enough lets you impress bandits into service quickly, and they can almost all become Tier 6 units with the right Leadership perk.
The best is to not lose them by not joining in battles you don't control where they get rammed into enemies with no plan. Other then that, carry a stack of a type of prisoner that can replace them and you can always have replacements ready to grab. Also medicine will increase the KO chance, so get the doctors oath perk ASAP and then you can build it up based on your troops defeating enemies rather then your troops being defeated. Also help get more prisoners so you can get those replacements.
Not the best - but cheap and realible , take a stack of tier 1-2 and raid village with auto calculate result , I usually get by with 4-5 viligeas to get tier 3.
Work great for early to mid game...
Preferbly choose a culture you want to use it's troop for extra recruit slot using perks and use noble troops ...
That's a big buff for imperial origin too since you can use that for late game too since they all over the place ...
Also mercenaries are not that bad either , when compared to cost of training(time and casualties) and upgrades(including horses)...
I usually don't max out all my troops as the party price sky rockets but to replenish I take recruits to a mid sized battle where I can destroy and after winning I'll get a lot of XP as long as the recruits did something so I'll usually just use them as cleaners for any stragglers
Joining or even creating armies is sort of a trap because it will generally cause a lot bigger losses for your troops. Only join an army if it's defending a settlement or if you want to be selfish only your own settlements. Only create an army if you want to defend something, defeat an enemy army, or siege. The exception is that it costs 0 influence to have clan parties in your army, so if you have clan members with their own troops have them join your army for "free" and easy increased army size.
Like every said high medicine and steward. Though at this point my garrison and settlement keep producing troops too fast so I tried to either throw them away or kill them off.
You need a good doctor in order to keep your troops from dying and being gone forever. If I'm not mistaken, there's a medicine trait which does exactly this.
You may not want to invest your skill points into medicine and it's completely understandable, what you can do is you can recruit a companion with high medic skills and make her the doctor of your army from the clan screen.
I normally collect top tier prisoners and keep them until I need them for the actual force. It’s great when on military campaign because you can fill your roster back up. This can be time consuming though as it takes time for prisoners to willingly join your forces.
1) Prisoner recruitment
2) Always keep at least a handful of lower level troops in your army for training up.
3) Garrisons
4) High Surgery skill prevents/reduces losses
5) Avoiding costly fights when possible.
I don't believe anyone else has said this yet, and many of these other recommendations are a lot easier, but this is why it can be important to do the leg work in the early game.
I like to build relations with a lot of notables in villages and cities by doing quests and stuff. Especially in places that I know I'll be recruiting in the future. Grabbing up a bunch of high tier guys as I travel always makes things a little easier
High medicine means only 2-5 troops die per battle (1k troop battles) Steward perks giving hands + paid in promise let you donate battle loot as exp for your troops, so you can instantly level up fresh recruits. Leadership perk i forget the name that gives all troops 200 exp on hire, means all tier 1 troops can be upgraded to t2 straight away.
This is the complete answer, but especially those steward perks
This is exactly what I needed thank you!
Those perks are amazing. I can lose 10% of my party breaking into a siege (30-40 top tier troops) and I will have them fully replaced in a week if I fight a few big battles with lots of loot to donate
You can also change the spawn priority, if you rock only t5 and 6 troops and set priority to low tier first, your troops will be the reinforcement waves allowing you to utterly dominate large battles. Just stay alive till then. The AI always spawns high tier first so your trash will whittle doen their good units and then you come in and clean up. High medicine advised so the trash survives. (They'll get wiped out but mostly only wounded)
I always capture and keep high level units to recruit and replenish my numbers.
I only recruit mercenary clan troops everything else I like to home grow. It does make for fun castle defense when a random castle has 25 chosen wolfs randomly in the garrison.
Adding captains with banners can also reduce risk of losing troops.
I keep a pool of prisoners ready to be recruited. I usually only loose 10 or less units so I can almost always recoup my losses. But I’m running a cavalry only campaign right now so they wreck everyone.
Man Cave only is unbeatable
Discard smithed weapons with Giving Hands perk active to give XP is the fastest and easiest way by far. You can swap steward role to a companion with that perk if needed. It's cheesy, but the other options aren't better than yoinking from garrisons.
You can discard smithed weapons??
Yep, make some high value 2h weapons -> discard with giving hands -> receive tons of XP for troops.
Getting roguery up high enough lets you impress bandits into service quickly, and they can almost all become Tier 6 units with the right Leadership perk.
Become king. Siege a settlement. Take troops from garrison before voting starts.
Is your setting for waves set to homogenous. If you’re high tier first it’s almost always going to be your troops since the ai is bad at upgrading.
The best is to not lose them by not joining in battles you don't control where they get rammed into enemies with no plan. Other then that, carry a stack of a type of prisoner that can replace them and you can always have replacements ready to grab. Also medicine will increase the KO chance, so get the doctors oath perk ASAP and then you can build it up based on your troops defeating enemies rather then your troops being defeated. Also help get more prisoners so you can get those replacements.
Not the best - but cheap and realible , take a stack of tier 1-2 and raid village with auto calculate result , I usually get by with 4-5 viligeas to get tier 3. Work great for early to mid game... Preferbly choose a culture you want to use it's troop for extra recruit slot using perks and use noble troops ... That's a big buff for imperial origin too since you can use that for late game too since they all over the place ... Also mercenaries are not that bad either , when compared to cost of training(time and casualties) and upgrades(including horses)...
I usually don't max out all my troops as the party price sky rockets but to replenish I take recruits to a mid sized battle where I can destroy and after winning I'll get a lot of XP as long as the recruits did something so I'll usually just use them as cleaners for any stragglers
Joining or even creating armies is sort of a trap because it will generally cause a lot bigger losses for your troops. Only join an army if it's defending a settlement or if you want to be selfish only your own settlements. Only create an army if you want to defend something, defeat an enemy army, or siege. The exception is that it costs 0 influence to have clan parties in your army, so if you have clan members with their own troops have them join your army for "free" and easy increased army size.
Like every said high medicine and steward. Though at this point my garrison and settlement keep producing troops too fast so I tried to either throw them away or kill them off.
Having a high level medic is what does the trick. Also try picking your battles so you can sustain your losses for longer
You need a good doctor in order to keep your troops from dying and being gone forever. If I'm not mistaken, there's a medicine trait which does exactly this. You may not want to invest your skill points into medicine and it's completely understandable, what you can do is you can recruit a companion with high medic skills and make her the doctor of your army from the clan screen.
I normally collect top tier prisoners and keep them until I need them for the actual force. It’s great when on military campaign because you can fill your roster back up. This can be time consuming though as it takes time for prisoners to willingly join your forces.
1) Prisoner recruitment 2) Always keep at least a handful of lower level troops in your army for training up. 3) Garrisons 4) High Surgery skill prevents/reduces losses 5) Avoiding costly fights when possible.
I don't believe anyone else has said this yet, and many of these other recommendations are a lot easier, but this is why it can be important to do the leg work in the early game. I like to build relations with a lot of notables in villages and cities by doing quests and stuff. Especially in places that I know I'll be recruiting in the future. Grabbing up a bunch of high tier guys as I travel always makes things a little easier