Ck2 retinues explained. The LC are great, but the HC hold them back.
Ck2 retinues explained. As long as you …
Crusader Kings II.
Ck2 retinues explained if the game is running while you make edits to the file, the game will only show them after you restart the game. Retinues in CK2 can be your main strength if used properly. GAMES. The problem is that they are so simple, just like battles in this game, which is just: attack/defense values. 4. Heavy cav This implies Knight retinues aren't really worth using as the standard Shock and Defence retinues will both outperform it in all cases except at extremely low supply limits. Note: I'm not sure, but I think that your budget still need to be positive for any type of retinues to reinforce. if the game For instance, the Berbers have a light cavalry retinue and focus on light cavalry from their feudal buildings: light cavalry usually don't offer much to feudal realms, since light cav are mostly about the skirmish phase while most of the generic feudal buildings focus on melee-phase units, but as soon as you get a retinue size of 3000+ Berber light cav retinues (with the corresponding Crusader Kings II. Ideally you want your retinue on its own flank for the proper tactics to fire. Light cavalry retinues work nicely too, just don't mix well with heavy infantry. Ideal Obligations Laws? Thread starter Hankus; Start date Apr 14, 2016; Jump to latest Follow Reply Menu We have updated our Community There is also a case to be made that once you have significant retinues in play, taxes are more valuable than levies. Italian and Scottish cultural troops are the best iirc. 8, it's a gold mine when it comes to making efficient retinues, and it should remain valid for at least a full month or so (once 2. Tribal retinues in CK2; Hunting Party vs HI-heavy . You can declare with retinues raised, but you can’t dismiss them without them going away permanently and if you lose a lot of men in a fight the reinforcement costs can be very expensive for a while, but they’re very worth it. Non-tribals must pay a fee to hire retinues. Numbers are important because the AI uses total troop count, regardless of the quality of the I've read that they're basically a standing army, but I'm still confused. Any troop in the game have attack and defense values. 3) Horse Archers and Elephants are just retinues doubled in size (less micromanagement),; feudal retinues hiring cost doubled (these are professional soldiers not peasants),; tribal retinues cost increased by 25% (elite tribesmen are not commoners),; 5 new feudal retinue types, 3 feudal retinue types upgradable with technological development of your capital province (check screenshot above); I honestly assumed my prestige retinues had been converted into feudal ones. Super nerf to archers allowed more retinues to be usable. They are great deterrent to any inside or outside threat. 3. Did you mean cultural? If so, Basarab I is Vlach which uses the South Slavic cultural retinue of Gusars - 100 heavy cav/150 light cav. CK2 Now, Hunting Parties (100LI+50LC) are a good all-round retinue, giving good value per Retinue Cap, but they seem to underperform per Supply Cap. You build them, they slowly reinforce (and cost a fortune while they do so, and I have normalized my figures such that a flank composed solely of Light Skirmish retinues is 100% efficient in the skirmish and pursuit phases, and a flank composed solely of Defense retinues is 100% efficient in the melee phase. Min maxers would absolutely tell you to make all of your available MAA Retinues the same, and then stack their buildings. Whenever your demesne levies are raised, the holding levy of each of the holdings you directly own is emptied and placed on the County the holding is in as an army. Greeks retinues are still better than standard levies because they have bonusses from the fact they are retinues and from your cultural building, and can be stack in a flanc with an adapted general. Retinues are most useful for controlling a larger kingdom/empire. seniority is op in gaining tech points as well as when you inherit or die, you gain the tech points from the new character or lands that they owned (plus cash and retinues) plus everyone will love you if you just make dynastic vassals I usualy create only the prestige and piety retinues because i play with conclave and its more efficient in the long run to spend your gold on custom mercenary band. But compared with other more homogeneous Before 2. if nomad, go pure light until you grab a desert area then go camal. One thing I noticed was that they changed the retinue compositions available. Cataphracts and Horse Cav are very good. Personally commanding a flank gives 15% more morale to its troops. But anyway, the cliff notes regarding your questions : Quite a lot has changed with combat in the latest patch, so a lot of information floating around online is strictly out of date. So I'm still not very experienced with CK2 (a bit over 200 hours played), but being the obsessive nerd I am, I couldn't help but try and learn about all the combat tactics and how to optimize retinues. Sarcem is This mod rebalances the retinue system. You do not want a mixed up unit, at that point it's just like a levy and not an elite unit. Here is a breakdown of all the Crusader Kings 2 DLC: Sword of Islam; Legacy of Rome; Sunset Invasion and retinues are such an essential element of late game CK2 that Crusader Kings is a historical grand strategy / RPG game series for PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 5 & Xbox Series X|S developed & published by Paradox Development Studio. Is that right? With 2. The Last With Pagan Blood: Erik the Heathen af stick with pikes. Elephants can be OP situationally (and all the time if you build right) The honest answer is the best retinue is whatever you find viable and enjoyable. I also like to recruit units and fill 1 flank with them to get only certain tactics to fire. 8, the "maintenance" of pikemen was increased slightly, affecting their retinue cap usage and reinforcement cost, which makes most cultural heavy infantry retinues with fully upgraded cultural buildings in your capital as cost-effective or more so than the generic Defense retinue, provided that you mix them with one Shock retinue to get the 1% archers to I've been playing CK2+ as Byzantine Empire and I went to start using retinues and realized that the generic defence retinues I usually use aren't available - instead I can only get Cataphracts, Heavy Byzantine or Mixed Byzantine. . I'm currently trying to find a good comp for Camel Cavalry (which seems to be pretty OP), but my problem is, 2) Heavy Cavalry retinues are a luxury for giant blobs and should be avoided by normal sized realms. 6 patch but with the number/ratio rebalances from the later paches intact. I thought about this Crusader Kings is a historical grand strategy / RPG game series for PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 5 & Xbox Series X|S developed & published by Paradox Development Studio. Good Morning :) I love Byzantine Empire and the Cataphract. But now, I can only just barely afford to have max retinues, and if I take any losses then refilling them makes me bankrupt. all checkboxes except 'unit is allowed to raid' are ticked Crusader Kings II. Combat in CK2 heavily depends on numbers, but there are exceptions to it. Engage in courtly intrigue, dynastic struggles, and holy warfare in mediæval Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India, the steppes and Tibet. By using these flank, you can sort of have the same Hammer and Anvil effect. Each ruler can only have a retinue of a limited size, dependent on their retinue cap. See Combat and the 3 Culture Bonuses for an explanation of how cultural building bonuses can I'm at approximately 1290 on my Rome playthrough. I'd like to have multiple small armies of between 5000 and 7000 troops as opposed to a few armies of 15-20K. Retinues are regiments of troops which form a standing army for each ruler. Somebody will probably stop by saying the Greek cataphract are amazing but they have their Greek-love glasses on. There's absolutely nothing in this game that'll give you a better advantage than a full retinue stack on an enemy's border when you declare, you can walk in and mop up his entire army before it gets The wiki has a lot of info on retinues, and simply googling "ck2 best retinues" will get you a lot of info. Until you dismiss them, you pay a monthly retinues doubled in size (less micromanagement),; feudal retinues hiring cost doubled (these are professional soldiers not peasants),; tribal retinues cost increased by 25% (elite tribesmen are not commoners),; 5 new feudal retinue types, 3 feudal retinue types upgradable with technological development of your capital province (check screenshot above); When building retinues, I build one strong combat stack per two or three archer stacks. retinues are stored in a text file in the ck common folder. Cultural retinues are better than the generic ones as long as they don't contain any light Defense and heavy infantry retinues work so well because they're cheap and pretty effective. Retinues are also dirt cheap when 100% reinforced (as long as they don't suffer heavy casualties). Naturally, the base Retinue Limit is 1k. Demesne Levy [edit | edit source]. To understand that, here is a list of all the CK2 Best Retinues? I got bored of the vanilla game so I wanted to try out the CK2+ mod. It compares attack damage, cost and retinue cap usage with standard retinues (Light Skirmish for skirmish phase, Defence retinue for melee phase). The Tibetan retinue are good due to having a perfect composition that can be used pure and use optimal tactic for their composition, that basically mean they harass during skirmish and once in melee they either raid or one of the ambush tactic (which with tibetan commander is regular one and their cultural mountain one, if you get Arabic commander you can get the The amountof retinues you can create is restricted by your realms tech levell, and obviously how much gold you have (to buy/reinforce them) #3. They allow you to maintain a standing army for "free". I wage all my wars with my massive retinues. Demesne levies are levies from the holdings you directly hold (your demesne), depending on their holding levy. So you can't dynamically add retinues to the game, since it requires restarting it. They allow you to maintain a standing army The poster found that out of the generic retinues defence is the best one, but shock can also work. Though you might want to add a small amount of defense retinues (for pikes). War of the Roses: Explained CK2 style. The top 3 are literally Pikes, Pikes A good retinue pawns its opposing unit and then helps out flanking the other opposing units (and during flanking you get mass bonuses to attack), and this is why it is possible to beat armies much larger that yours (with the right retinue/commander -> allows you to use good tactics instead of bad ones), with negligible retinue losses. I'm currently taking over India, starting world wars every war I start. 5. If you peruse the tactics page on the wiki I think you will start to get a feel for this. they havent changed unit stats since they nerf the archers. Better Armies - Complete Combat, Retinue, & Building Overhaul (CK2+ & Vanilla Submod) Better Armies - Complete Combat, Retinue, & Building Overhaul (Submod) Crusader Kings is a historical grand strategy / RPG game series for PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 5 & Xbox Series X|S developed & published by Paradox Development Studio. Oeff is offensive efficiency. Not that they dont help you, they do. Generally speaking I stop raising levies except for major offensives or defenses once I hit about Empire tier. Start using them only once your Defence retinues start hitting the supply limit. HC-dominated retinues are normally insanely expensive for their numbers, whilst not being so powerful as to justify it with the current reduced numbers. I'd reduce the cost of knights. 2) Download the mod and unzip it into your mod folder. We've swung from boring retinues because OP to boring retinues because almost all the options are worthless. Discover; Our brands; Browse; Play on Paradox technology; COMMUNITY. - 2 Cataphract / 1 Cavalry with F/O/N/G/B commander for Couched Lance Charge. Unlike levies, retinues do not need to be dismissed before declaring war. I thought about this Prestige retinues: have prestige - reinforce. Moorish buildings give +40/+40/+40% - so fully upgrade the one in They work well enough, but it baffles me that they would nerf pikemen and heavy infantry in both stats and soldier per retinue cap, and then turn around turn around and make light skirmish retinues that cost less retinue cap, gold, and have more than double the number of troops per unit. Of course, cavalry retinues are Very Expensive and people who don't have Byz-tier tax bases might want to use more cost-effective retinues, like Shock for the Shieldwall and Advance Tactics (my personal preference), or Defense and hire an Italian or Scottish Commander for their Cultural tactics. Jan 5, 2019 · 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)). The cultural retinues are almost always worth hiring. better yet, if you can grab constatinople and move your capital there, you can create pure heavy cavs and wreck the entire world (armies 3 retinues doubled in size (less micromanagement),; feudal retinues hiring cost doubled (these are professional soldiers not peasants),; tribal retinues cost increased by 25% (elite tribesmen are not a common thing),; 5 new feudal Retinues suck in this game to be honest. Make someone else to defend the enemy attacks, so that your large tribal savages can charge on their undefended side, and crush them without being attacked back. When you're tribal I try to mix mostly hunting party with a few of the one with archers. la_nague. Standard path on windows is: "My Documents/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings II/save games". Don't fall for the trap of buying the more expensive retinues with fewer but more powerful troops. Albeit in long run 4-5 pure pike retinues lets say mixed with x1 defensive retinue would be cheaper than mixing in mercs (and the result would be identical). I'd like to be able to combine these small armies as the situation demands so I'm thinking the individual 5-7K armies are all one flank so they can easily be tips: charles start anywhere near the ERE is great as you can off the bat just send your spy master to constantinople and steal tech points. an Italian or All Retinues in CK2. Here is a list of tactics. They also have a monthly maintenance cost and can be expensive while reinforcing back to full strength. I figured that explained the drop in relative retinue cap, as I thought the new retinues were higher quality but weightier in terms of cap er unit. Mar 2 For CK2, light cav and defense are generally the best generic retinues. Horse archers are still very unreliable and this retinue is not very cost-effective. As others mentioned, as long as you don't take Retinues are very powerful and I recommend using them if you have the DLC (Legacy of Rome, you cannot use them without it). - All Cataphract with F/O/N/G/B commander for Couched Lance Charge. I'd like it if we could try for the middle ground. They cost a lot in upkeep while forming but once they're fully reinforced their upkeep drops to negligible Retinues are heavily overpowered. retinues doubled in size (less micromanagement),; feudal retinues hiring cost doubled (these are professional soldiers not peasants),; tribal retinues cost increased by 25% (elite tribesmen are not a common thing),; 5 new feudal I'm playing as the reformed Roman Empire and am thinking of revising how my retinues work. Piety retinues: have piety - reinforce. Yeah retinues not that important AI pretty dumb when it comes to combat. In CK2, occupying territory is a more reliable way to win wars, after all. Retinues are also better than vassal levies in my opinion because you can keep them raised forever at full morale and you don't have to gather them from halfway across the planet every time you declare war. Multiply by, say, 6 (for 4 levels of Military Organization, which gives you 600% more retinue cap), and you have 7200 retinues. if you're anything but nomad, play pure pikes as you can win battles 1. I only use levies if I have no standing retinues close. Different troop types take up differently-sized portions of the cap, with more powerful types (such as heavy cavalry) using mo Retinues are a permanent standing army that costs a lot of upkeep to maintain and they take a long time to recruit fully, but they make sure you have a large amount of troops available with First, there are advantages for both cheap/numerous retinues, like light infantry and archers, or expensive/lower number retinues, like cavalry. If you're an emperor, all you can do is conquer territory and research Military Organization. Two reasons why: Crusader Kings II. I'm a min/max kinda guy when it comes to retinues so does anyone know what's the most OP one? The Legacy of Rome DLC is required. I believe that some retinue testers use "efficiency" to refer to something like kills:casualties. all my levies can be turned on to raid just fine, only retinue that can't. If it's hard to tell the difference between the piety/prestige tribal retinues, hover over their names and compare them against the wiki. If you outnumber your enemy with 5 or 6K troops, then the troop types doesn't really matter, but if your troop size is even or slightly more than your enemy (like 1, 2K) then the terrain type, commander modifiers and troop modifiers have a big impact for the outcame of the battle. Mar 2, 2013 @ 12:08pm OK, I have been playing a long time now but still not got the tech, I will have a look around see if I can find it! Thanks #4. As long as you Crusader Kings II. You should assign a skilled commander to lead each flank (left, center, or right) that contains troops. Though before writing Knight retinue off OP horse archer retinues a pretty cool soundtrack But the most important benefit comes from paganism and Altaic culture combined: The real Invasion CB, the one that lets you personally take every single holding in any realm in a single war, unlike the pathetic Muslim Invasion which only subjugates a single kingdom. Hiring mercenaries or holy orders temporarily adds their leader and commanders to your pool. 6 days ago · The only cultural retinues I even consider not using exclusively are archer heavy retinues (because having more than 60% archers in a flank gives the enemy a much higher chance of firing "charge on undefended flank") and cataphracts (because there are a couple bugs that mean they are liable to fire tactics that make them completely useless). better yet, if you can grab constatinople and move your capital there, you can create pure heavy cavs and wreck the entire world (armies 3 Combat in CK2 heavily depends on numbers, but there are exceptions to it. Not sure why, it just says that the army my retinue is in (only retinue) is unable to raid, despite having used it to raid just months before. All you should buy is I think it's called Shock or Skirmishers, it's the archers/light infantry retinue. (The Tudor crest even had the Welsh Dragon unlike the Current Scottish Unicorn) picking up invaluable Longbow retinues before marching on Richard's army and crushing it in Bosworth Field and becoming King of England. It really depends on your situation and resources. 1. For feudal, it depends what the cultural one is- but you want mostly cavalry, heavy infantry, some archers. Crusader Kings is a historical grand strategy / RPG game series for PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 5 & Xbox Series X|S developed & published by Paradox Development Studio. Retinues are very powerful and I recommend using them if you have the DLC (Legacy of Rome, you cannot use them without it). Because the whole combat system is quite opaque and as a personal challenge, I have been putting together a spreadsheet over the last few days that should provide the most comprehensive and accurate estimation of the value of different The point of retinues is to have purity of troop types to maximize specific tactics. Toggle signature. I would either go light skirmish, as light infantry cost the least retinue cap for inflated troop numbers to try to prevent factions from firing, or i would do 1 shock for every 10 defence retinues, as pikemen are godly and the best pike tactics (unless you have an italian or roman commander) need a bit of heavy I usually refer to the retinues composition posts on reddit for all my retinue needs. 5 your number. Retinues only cost money when they are recharging, so either when you stick with pikes. / In CK2 combat, I've never lost a battle with higher numbers than the enemy, and never won with lower numbers. They're pikemen (best unit overall) and benefit a lot from their cultural bonuses when combined with resp. Paradox Forums Paradox Wikis Support Jan 26, 2025 · 1) Download the saves and unzip them into your saves directory. The reason republics have such crazy amounts of retinues is their palace, which fully upgraded gives +1200 retinue cap. My cultural retinue is defensive HI, and I can get Ardent Guardians (50A+50HI). All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews The short version is basically Pikes/Defence retinues, or at least Heavy Infantry (especially if you have HI cultural buildings). It was literally like well over a century before I noticed it, haha. As for composition, pure Gallowglass isn't bad at all. Retinues are amazing and OP because you can specifically design them to take advantage of good tactics during combat and they don't have to be dismissed before declaring a war. All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Cultural buildings are special buildings constructed in castles and tribes that are specific to the county's culture. 6 patch and how the retinues are in the 3. I read various composition for a retinue: - 2 Defence / 1 Cataphract with greek commander for Embolon Charge Formation. You can choose different retinues and go for different tactics depending on your specific needs, for example those spearman-heavy retinues are great at winning battles, being capable of defeating armies several times their size, but aren't very good at actually killing a lot of the soldiers, so you may choose to focus on retinues and tactics better at maximizing enemy Once they’re at max they essentially stand around and wait for you to get in a war. This does not necessarily mean you will have one thousand troops, it just means that their maximum value will be of 1k. I use retinues in 1 flank, mercenaries on another flank, and levies in middle. First time playing CK2 in a year. I've decided to keep them. That's literally what they are. You may assign yourself, your marshal, and direct subjects holding the minor title of "Commander". 1 patch but with some differences. Like in CK3, though, specialized cultural retinues are a cut above the generic ones — if you can get, say, camels or horse archers or something you should. The LC are great, but the HC hold them back. They are your own standing army so you can park your army right next to enemy before you declare war. If you're a count, duke, or king, you can also try to get to the next tier title. There aren't any religious retinues, AFAIK, except for the two tribal retinues for defensive tribals that use piety. If you had enough money to create them, take care of them and don't disband them. Jellybean. I would generally agree, but I've noticed that I can ward off attacks (even when I'm Good Morning :) I love Byzantine Empire and the Cataphract. Retinue Cap is determined by a combination of your Realm Size, Rank, and Military Organization Tech. The principal advantage of larger numbers are that the AI (including factions) Let us quickly explain how retinues work in CK2, what types there are, and how you can get more of them to defeat your enemies. Retinues are essentially long term investment mercenaries. CK2 troops always have three flanks, although you don't have to fill them all. HC aren't great in mixes like that. Retinues suck in this game to be honest. Can anybody help? What is Retinues are (I think) part of the Legacy of Rome dlc and are essentially a full-time standing army. In your As always, don't forget to check Dragatus' awesome analysis of retinue efficiency for 2. It's kind of a combination between how the retinues were in the 2. Last time I played, retinues were OP and you could stack skirmisher retinues for cheap, massive numbers to quickly siege down castles. A new army type called retinues, in contrast to feudal levies which must be called to war each time, represent standing armies like those of the Byzantines that exist on the Varangian Veterans are very good. - Doubles the amount of retinues in each subunit. Whilst levies have to be raised and lowered when going to war, retinues CK2 On one hand, I've seen people recommend placing your nomad capital in Europe to unlock the heavy cavalry retinue, or moaning about how Cataphracts are diluted with horse archers because they will be too good otherwise. Edward Plantagenet III (1312-1377) was a grandson of the Capet Dynasty. 9 and holy fury drops, it might all change if units or tactics get rebalanced). Light Cav works well enough on a flank, and everything else starts getting worse from there. These correspond to cultural retinues; the retinue receives the benefit of cultural buildings in the capital holding in addition to its own unique features. Makes it more like it was in the 2. 0 most of the retinues were eclipsed by Generic/English archer retinues. This obviously doesn't work for CK2+. mfurcemotwjlofbsciwupifcechtbddllykoceqvxhgyiyismi