Roguery and heavy bandit playthroughs

So while I have been going over special/bandit units on separate posts I realize that there are some things I should probably mention to help those who may be interested in adopting that type of play style.

Before going further a lot of this info is covered by HalCylion over on Youtube. Some of that information may be outdated as that was made when the game was still in beta. But I do give him all the credit for making me fall in love with this play style.

I'll start off with early game and work my way up from there.This is also assuming you want a very bandit heavy army. note some steps you can skip if you don't care about starting out with only bandits.

So when you create you character and given the choice of starting culture I'd almost always recomend Battania. Not only because it likely contains the best passive in the game, but it's a decent starting point. other option I'd put up for consideration is the Empire for cheaper wages. and also being in the middle of the map is nice.

Next is choosing skills, while you may think that choosing all the roguery options you can would save you time I'd actually strongly advise you to only pick one that gives a bonus to roguery and the rest into the play style you want that character to be. So mostly focus on One-handed or two-handed. throwing/archery/crossbows, Athletics or riding. also try to squeeze a leadership in there if you can. The option "your way with people" in the early childhood option is what i usually go with. after that i'd say starting at age 30 but it's up to you.

Once you are in the game put all your points in roguery, it should fill up the bonus xp bar up to level 150. Every level up you get after this should go to social as you want to give yourself as much help in leveling up leadership as possible.

Focusing on starting out, you don't actually need to recruit any troops. just go and find a group of looters, any size will do. and pick them off from range/ horse back. I know some of you have seen highlights of people swinging back and forth kiting out people without a mount. trust me that's late game footage and early game trying to fight off a group of 30 looters by yourself on foot will not end well for you. Now this might change in the future but as of writing this post you can expand all you ammo on the looters. retreat, then re-engage. and you will get your ammo re stocked. keep doing this until you kill most of them. Some looters spawn with pitch forks. Try to take them out first. once you have taken them down to 2 or at least have them spread out switch to a mace or a hammer and start beating them over the head to knock them out and take some prisoner. Rinse and repeat until you have a decent sized army.

After you have a few meat shields (the looters) you can start looking toward small bandit parties to *recruit*them. Your next target should be sea raiders preferably in much smaller groups than yours (They will run you over if you try to fight them with even numbers and only looters.) After you get a few sea raiders look out for forest bandit parties. have the sea raiders make a shield wall then advance on them. now that you have a good mix of sea raiders and forest bandits you now have an actual threatening army. if you find some mountain bandits along way pick some up as highwaymen are a really solid unit. I'd advise to get them after the sea raiders due largely to the first 2 tiers of the mountain bandits being pretty bad.

Now i know some of you may be asking why i have not mentioned steppe bandits or desert bandits. And that's simple. they are really good units that you either can not catch nor run away from. At least with the other bandits i've mentioned it's very do-able and not an uphill battle filled with pain. The best way to get them is to wait until you have a decent sized army with sea raider chiefs and forest bandits and attack steppe and desert hideouts. get them *recruited* that way.

LEVELING UP ROGUERY

But once you start getting sea raiders and forest bandits you should have a decent skill level with one-handed or two-handed weapons. this is where you can power level roguery fast. Raiding caravans or villages offers a good amount of loot at the cost of the faction not being a fan of you. Like any party from that faction that spots you will attack on site after you perform that action. and while raiding villages you got to keep an eye around you. If you see a way bigger party than you approaching you should probably cancel the raid and peace out before they get to close.

If raiding caravans isn't your thing and you don't want to risk getting caught out with your pants down when raiding villages. then the best course of action is to go from town to town, castle to castle. and look in their inventories for named prisoners.

Before this I should mention to make sure you have upgraded your civilian outfit to the best you can afford.

Simply bribe the guard to get entry to the dungeon then break that noble out of prison. Successful jail breaks will award a huge amount of xp towards roguery.

ROGUERY SKILLS TO TAKE

level 25

Rest for the wicked. and it's not even a competition. more xp to get bandits out of their low tier forms and faster raiding vs being able to talk your way out of avoiding conflict? You could make an argument for prisoners being less likely to escape is good in some situations but there are other perks that can help with that.

Level 50

Two-faced again is a no-brainer. Being able to just recruit them without suffering a moral penalty is massive when you start recruiting bandits in mass. Now if you don't care about having a bandit army then deep pockets is the way to go. double the amount you can bet on tourney's and slightly cheaper wages for the one or two bandits you might have in your party isn't bad.

Level 75

This is pretty easy depending on your play style. Bandit heavy army? Know-how. getting more loot from caravans and villages makes the money flow easier. Just playing the game regularly? In best light. Faster recovery of villages is nice but needing more recruits than what is being offered in enemy territory can be a game changer.

Level 100

Again this is a good tier no matter how you are playing. Promises is the perk to take for bandit central armies. less time as prisoners means more able bodied recruits. and you cut their food need in half. which is HUGE for saving budget once you start getting bigger armies. For non-bandit heavy armies Slave Trader is worth the investment into roguery in the first place You get more for regular troops from ransom brokers and your prisoner limit is increased.

Level 125

So honestly only scarface is worth taking bandit playthrough or not. making it easier for the enemy bandits, villages or caravans just surrender saves you a lot of time and less chances to lose important units. White lies is a noob trap. your crimial rating decreases faster over time. that's it. Bandit players will prefer an easier surrender vs a forgive and forget. just be smart and vigilent on the map and you won't have to worry about it.

level 150

this is the big one. and it really only swings one way. Partners in crime. Bandit parties always offer to join you and deal more damage in formations you lead in. congrats. you now can recruit bandit parties on the fly easily. Smuggler's Connection is..... ok i guess if you are not worried about recruiting bandits but still want to be jail breaking nobles? +10 extra armor to civilian clother is a nice bonus. and taking out half the trade penalty in an enemy nation is nice if you are hurting for cash.

Level 175

For the bandit enjoyer One of the family pairs nicely with the damage amp from Partners in crime. +10 to all bandit combat skills in the formation you lead in is huge for further damage output. Salt of the earth is actually not a bad perk for either play style. getting more access to villages loot stash that comp[y with hostile actions is pretty nice. and an increase in tariff revenue is always welcome.

Level 200

Carver is the perk you take if you want more damage in battle. Ransom Broker is the perk you take if you want more money from hero units you sell from the ransom broker or if your tired of them escaping too easily. Both are good no matter the play style

Level 225

These are very interesting perks. Arms dealer decreases the trade penalty of weapons you sell. While also increasing a castle's or town's militia by +2 under siege. While dirty fighting increase the stun duration of your kicks by 50%, it also adds the benefit of +2 random food being smuggled into any castle or town that your in that is under siege. I'd lean more towards dirty fighting for the extra stun duration. after all more CC = more GG. But if you have just taken a settlement and an army is already on your doorstep it's pretty nice to have some extra militia for free..... assuming the army doesn't just instantly deploy their troops.

Level 250

Dash and Slash is pretty good if you play as an infantry unit and you have two-handed users in your formation. but if neither of those are true this talent is useless. Fleet Footed greatly increases your movement speed while your weapons and shield is unequiped. This is ok if you are playing on foot and would be excellent for jail breaking.... if all you had to do to complete a jail break was get to the door. But no, to complete a jail break you must beat all the guards. Maybe if you play on foot and want to get around the battle field better i can see it. the other benefit Fleet footed brings increasing your escape chance in mobile parties. Which is pretty nice as there are times where you just get caught out and have to start over on building up an army. But getting this at level 250 just feels..... bad.

Level 275

Rouge Extradordinaire is the only perk and the final one. increase the loot amount by 1% for every skill point over 200. so at the time you get this it's a straight 75% increase in loot you obtain.

The next most important thing to level is leadership which to level up simply lead big armies. I won't go over every perk in leadership but I will hit the big ones to combine with bandits.

Important Leadership talents to help with bandit play through.

Level 25

Combat tips is better for bandits as most bandits start at tier 2 so raise the meek loses out after the first upgrade. Consistent Xp for all I find is better than no xp after 1 upgrade.

Level 50

Fervent attacker is easily the go-to. Having more start moral when attacking is nice but the big thing is halfing the time it takes to recruit most bandit units is better.

Level 150

Veteran's respect is such a good talent for bandit or normal parties. being able to convert bandits to regular troops is great. but with enough patience the High tier bandits actually convert into noble line units. really giving your army more pop than ever before.

And I do believe that is everything I wanted to cover. If anyone has any further question let me know in the comments below.

Again I'm not sure how much of what Halcylion covered is out of date but I would reccomend checking him out on Youtube.

Submitted November 15, 2022 at 09:00PM by Evassivestagga https://ift.tt/jDym4xS