Garrison Role Play?

Just out of curiosity, how do you guys role play garrisons, if at all?

I used to just be utilitarian, trying to get as many troops in an area to make it happy. However, I started finding a good balance of troops to effectively hold off an invasion. That has now morphed into my current RPing of garrisons.

Since each faction has "noblemen," I have each province have a nobleman retinue in the garrison to represent the "baron" of the province. So, fo my Russians, in the early game I have a unit of Druzhina in each city/fortress to represent the baron and his bodyguard. In the late game, I make it one unit of Dvor cavalry and one unit of dismounted Dvor to represent the baron and his "household troops." Then, in each castle, I have about 5-6 peasant archers, two units of Dismounted Boyar Sons for wall defense, and two units of Spearmen for gate defense (mostly to be as effective as possible without a high cost of garrison). This represents the amount of troops the nobleman needs to be able to raise from his area in return for his land. For cities, I usually have the baron and his household troops along with militia for city defense, usually about 6 peasant archers, 4 crossbowmen, and whatever other troops I find necessary for a good defensive mix.

It makes it kind of fun to play, especially in the inward provinces. Local barons can then take forces out to deal with rebels in their own provinces instead of taking professional armies to complete the task, etc.

How do you guys do it? Are you strictly utilitarian, or do you add some RP elements for fun?

Gah I admit I'm a powergamer.
I can't get it over my bleeding heart to have my core cities wasting cash by too large garissons wasting money ^^

I try to leave the garrissons of my border cities almost entirely made out of militia though; so as to give the AI a half decent chance when they -finally- commit to a siege.

Also playing Russians right now. Man those dvor are expensive to maintain. I find myself mainly using large amounts dismounted dhruzinas covreed by hordes of cossacks and boyar's sons instead.
Only the mongols don' t insta-route when you enfilade arrow fire from all sides coupled with a shower of javelins whilst 500 men with axes come charging down the hill.


It's quite challenging early on though before you tech up. Those polish nobles are a pain.

I don't garrison role play, all I do is put a governor in and that's it, if rebels show up I recruit a small army and then disband it win the rebel are defeated.

I never even heard of RPing with Garrisons. Sounds kind of fun. I think I'll give it a try in my next campaign.

IMHO this game dosen't have much of a medieval and fuedilistic feeling. The battles are cool but the campaign mechanics need work. A MTW2 Campaign seems too much like RTW with a facelift.

Did many cities even have garrisons or is the game trying to symbolize that these are ordinary people that are formed into militias in times of crisis? Did kings pay upkeep for their armies or did the armies serve for their tenure and return home after their period of service was up?

These are the types of questions that go through my mind when I am playng this game. I spend a lot of my time playing the TW series and I just wish that they had a little more historical realism.

In the meantime I suppose that I'll have to use Role Playing to spice things up. RPing with garrisons is a good idea. Does anyone else have any good Role Playing ideas.

Roleplay your general's traits Gaiseric, usually fun. I think Beefeater wrote such AARs back when M2TW first came out. You could also join a PBM in the Throne Room if you like roleplaying TW.

As for garrison role play. No I don't do it. But sometimes I hire extra units to make garrisons look a bit more realisitc. Only if I have more florins than I can spend though to prevent the corruption traits from cropping up ;)

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Originally Posted by Gaiseric

I never even heard of RPing with Garrisons. Sounds kind of fun. I think I'll give it a try in my next campaign.

IMHO this game dosen't have much of a medieval and fuedilistic feeling. The battles are cool but the campaign mechanics need work. A MTW2 Campaign seems too much like RTW with a facelift.

Did many cities even have garrisons or is the game trying to symbolize that these are ordinary people that are formed into militias in times of crisis? Did kings pay upkeep for their armies or did the armies serve for their tenure and return home after their period of service was up?

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Well, I'm sure some history guys are going to pop in and say something along the lines of "Most of Europe didn't practice feudalism. Get your facts straight." :laugh4:

Kidding aside, with a castle as a center of power, the "troops" usually just worked the land or practiced their trade, but were ready to be called into service when need be. So, I don't think their were troops, weapons ready, at all times in a castle. Probably just enough for basic police duties. So, I think it is more representative of the readiness of a region than an actual force inside a castle.

As for cities, I'm sure they had to have had a police force of some sort to keep order. I'm not sure if they were paid police forces or just local militias, but either way I always thought of it as the same kind of thing as the castle, where they represent the ability to gather that many troops in a time of need, but not necessarily that they were active at all times. But as the city gets bigger, I can reasonably see a full stack garrison as being active at all times. A stack of 1,000 troops in a city of 25,000 seems reasonable at around 1 "policeman" per 250 citizens. Modern day cities, especially large ones, I think have closer to 1 per 200 (I think New York City has about 1 per 180 in the city itself). If that were the case, these militia would probably be paid to do just that: police. Otherwise, militia troops in smaller towns would probably ply their trade and take up arms when called into service.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

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Originally Posted by FactionHeir

Roleplay your general's traits Gaiseric, usually fun. I think Beefeater wrote such AARs back when M2TW first came out. You could also join a PBM in the Throne Room if you like roleplaying TW.

As for garrison role play. No I don't do it. But sometimes I hire extra units to make garrisons look a bit more realisitc. Only if I have more florins than I can spend though to prevent the corruption traits from cropping up ;)

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I just started doing it now because I was raking in over 30,000 florins per turn and didn't know what to do with it. Still, with decking out my garrisons I am still making over 20,000 per turn. I suppose a full empire-wide "garrison role play" could cost you around 8,000 florins a turn (I have about 40 provinces). It's still kind of fun though!

I'm probably going to do this from now on, but just scale back the garrisons earlier. Maybe one noble unit per region and some peasant-esque troops like woodsmen or peasant archers, with small towns keeping just enough militia for free upkeep so it doesn't cost anything for them (along with the noble).

I've tended to vary my approach over time, but at the moment I am trying to limit most of my city garrisons to the level of free garrison slots allowed by the game and assuming that this is the resident garrison of the city.

Castles tend to have slightly larger garrisons merely because they are the main recruitment centre for the field army and so have newly raised troops awaiting orders to march plus a steady trickle of depleted units and units awaiting retraining.

I also try to supplement garrisons with locally raised mercenaries when required so that the garrisons have more of a local flavour. e.g. Irish troops in Ireland, desert troops in North Africa etc.

Like you I try to appoint noblemen to cities and castles as Governors and think of them as the local lords/satraps for the area. Though I don't adhere to these appointment religiously and people do get moved around much more than they would in real life.

I've been RP-ing my garrisons since I started playing. The idea of adding noble unit's is something I don't often do though. With my RP-d Russian garrison's I had the spear and archer militia guys backed up by the "gentlemen" militia. Such as crossbow militia and cavalry militia. I like it to cause they're higher status troops but.. even if they think they're good.. which they probably do.. they really aren't. But... what do expect from the high class citizenry? But.. I shall definately consider adding Boyar Son's and Druzhina in my armies as well. Would make historic sense. (Russian armies typically consisted of a general's druzhina and the polk. (Polk random militia troops scrapped together before battle.) I also do this with other factions to. Russia's my favorite of course, but as France I garison a knight unit, arabs I garrison a Sipahi, or arab cavalry... etc. Sacacen's higher level militia etc. I love a bit of RP in a game though. Makes it more emersive.

Does changing garrison units as time changes count as role play? After gunpowder, most of my garrisons consist of pike and musket armies with a couple of late game S&S units(no knights) and cannons to represent the new trend in warfare. Bugged or not, gunpowder warfare is very fun but is kinda of a shame since the AI rarely use any gunpowder infantry(except the Rus, they love spamming cossacks)

I actually Rp many of my battles including custom battle and garrison battles as you mentioned. I don't always RP but I do a lot of the time. I feel that is adds another aspect to the game, at least for me it does.

For instance, maybe I will make a custom battle and have a leader with a few random units and do a field battle and pretend that he was taking his small army home when they got ambushed by another army of superior size but with less experience or something of that sort or I will do the same thing with an army in one of my garrisons.

:knight:

I just build the best militia troops that has free upkeep.

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FactionHeir:Roleplay your general's traits Gaiseric, usually fun. I think Beefeater wrote such AARs back when M2TW first came out. You could also join a PBM in the Throne Room if you like roleplaying TW.

As for garrison role play. No I don't do it. But sometimes I hire extra units to make garrisons look a bit more realisitc. Only if I have more florins than I can spend though to prevent the corruption traits from cropping up ;)

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I'd like to roleplay my generals/govenors better but I don't know what buildings give certain traits and ancilleries. I know some good information about training govenors was just posted, but are there any other guides that tell which buildings give what traits? Somtimes my really high piety and chivilry generals get some bad traits.

I think I will start adding some noble and local mercenery units to RP my settlements. I might get annal when the plauge arrives though, and send them all back for retraining.:whip:

These RP ideas should keep me interested in the game for the moment. I've been playing this game, and this game only since its realese, no wonder my intrest is wanning.~:mecry:

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Originally Posted by Gaiseric

I'd like to roleplay my generals/govenors better but I don't know what buildings give certain traits and ancilleries. I know some good information about training govenors was just posted, but are there any other guides that tell which buildings give what traits? Somtimes my really high piety and chivilry generals get some bad traits.

I think I will start adding some noble and local mercenery units to RP my settlements. I might get annal when the plauge arrives though, and send them all back for retraining.:whip:

These RP ideas should keep me interested in the game for the moment. I've been playing this game, and this game only since its realese, no wonder my intrest is wanning.~:mecry:

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I have an older book on Medieval warfare that talks specifically about what military service was required for a knights fee (in England, anyway) and how castle garrisons were dealth with.

The king of course held all the land of the kingdom under God, and all others were tenants of the King. Barons and Church Magnates were the tennants-in-chief and held their land in return fopr providing a stipulated number of knights. The Barons then sub-let their property to others, who had a "knight's fee." Each knight would then grant farms to freeholders, who in turn granted strips of land to peasants in return for labor.

Each knight who owned a knight's fee needed to provide a retinue of soldiers. In 1277, a retinue recorded in an English Parliament writ consisted of 12 light horse, 8 foot sergeants, 1 mounted crossbowmen, 6 archers, 7 boys with horses of low value, and 6 men armed with axes or spades, along with the knight himself on a heavy charger. Each of these retinues then made up the forces required to be provided by a tennant-in-chief to the King. In Germany, however, it was common for tennants-in-chief to hold their entire land instead of subletting, and provided their troop commitment by hiring knights for their service, known as household knights.

Also, the entire population of men from 16 to 60 were able to be called upon at any time to defend the country in a time of emergency, known as a shire levy, but they were never required to complete foreign service. Each person needed to arm himself according to his wealth, with those owning chattels (personal property) between 9 and 20 marks required to arm themselves with a bow, those with 40 to 100 schillings had to have bows and swords, and those who had more than 15 pounds a year in income needed to fight mounted.

A knight's service was limited to 40 days at a time without pay, and could be required to serve longer with pay. These same knights were also obliged to serve in the garrisons of the royal and baronial castles, which ranged in length from two weeks to three months, with shorter periods served more than once a year and a constant rotation going so a castle was always well garrisoned.

Anyway, that's how it worked for the most part in the rural feudal areas in France, England, and Germany, althought different systems were present in Italy, Iberia, etc.

I just found that interesting and thought I'd share :beam:

Thanks Agent that was interesting. I was surprised by the mounted crossbowman, but I guess that doesn't mean he fought mounted merely that he was supplied with a horse.

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Originally Posted by Didz

Thanks Agent that was interesting. I was surprised by the mounted crossbowman, but I guess that doesn't mean he fought mounted merely that he was supplied with a horse.

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Yeah, they breifly mentioned that it was basically just a crossbowmen with a horse, not necessarily ON a horse during combat.

All that I said above is how it worked in the early Feudal system up through the 13th century or so, but things started changing after that because Feudal armies were not very reliable. The book said that England was arranged to provide around 6,000 to 7,000 knights if need be, but when the King of England in the late 1200's led a campaign into Wales only about 300 actually showed up. I can say a few things about the later feudal periods and Italian cities if you'd like :beam:

Also, just so you know, most of our property law is still basically directly from these medieval periods. Leases and sub-leases, along with landlords (operative word being "lord") and tennants, are directly related to the feudal terminology and really changed little since that time period.

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Originally Posted by Agent Smith

Also, just so you know, most of our property law is still basically directly from these medieval periods. Leases and sub-leases, along with landlords (operative word being "lord") and tennants, are directly related to the feudal terminology and really changed little since that time period.

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Yes. I was aware of that. Its a very important difference between English property law and say that of France, and one that catches a lot of unsuspecting English people out when they buy property abroad.

I personally am in a rather intersting situation as my flat is what is known as a corrupt or insecure freehold, as it does not rest on the soil of England and therefore legally I cannot own it (or more accurately the Queen cannot grant me a right of freehold over the land it sits on as it doesn't sit on any). I have to have special insurance just in case the guy who owns the flat under me decides to declare himself an independant state.:laugh4:

Mind you I have also seriously considered challenging the English governments right to charge me tax, as theoretically I don't live in England.

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Originally Posted by Didz

Yes. I was aware of that. Its a very important difference between English property law and say that of France, and one that catches a lot of unsuspecting English people out when they buy property abroad.

I personally am in a rather intersting situation as my flat is what is know as a corrupt or insecure freehold, as it does not rest on the soil of England and therefore legally I cannot own it. I have to have special insurance just in case the guy who owns the flat under me decides to declare himself an independant state.:laugh4:

Mind you I have also seriously considered challenging the English governments right to charge me tax, as theoretically I don't live in England.

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That's too funny!

I also falied to see that you were from the UK. American property law is based upon the English form, but Americans really don't know the first thing about it for the most part, whereas I assumed it is of more importance in England. Leases basically just mean apartments to most over here.

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Originally Posted by Agent Smith

American property law is based upon the English form.

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How does that actually work then?

Presumably before the rebellion the American Colonies were the property of the British Crown and so the American's would have had right of ownership as freeholders in the same way as we still do in Britain. But when America became independant all rights of ownership over land would have been instantly negated as the person who granted it no longer owned it.

So, how exactly do American's trace their right of ownership, and who actually owns America?

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Originally Posted by Didz

How does that actually work then?

Presumably before the rebellion the American Colonies were the property of the British Crown and so the American's would have had right of ownership as freeholders in the same way as we still do in Britain. But when America became independant all rights of ownership over land would have been instantly negated as the person who granted it no longer owned it.

So, how exactly do American's trace their right of ownership, and who actually owns America?

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One of the first thing America did was eliminate the nobility, essentially making all landholders freeholders. Upon the formation of the Federal Government, the Government itself owned all of the land in the Untied States after the revolution and granted it as it saw fit. The persons who received the land then held the land in "fee simple absolute." In other words, the freeholders essentially own the land absolutely and privately and may use it as they see fit and there can really be no restrictions on alienation. From that point you can get other traditional British property "ownerhsips." A person who holds property in fee simple absolute can lease it to someone else or multiple other parties, they can grant life estates to another person, they can grant fee simples subject to divestment, etc.

So, when tracing back property ownership in the United States, you essentially trace it back to the revolution and the first grant of said property by the United States Government. To this day, there is still plenty of property that isn't owned privately by anyone and is still retained by the government.

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Originally Posted by Agent Smith

Just out of curiosity, how do you guys role play garrisons, if at all?

I used to just be utilitarian, trying to get as many troops in an area to make it happy. However, I started finding a good balance of troops to effectively hold off an invasion. That has now morphed into my current RPing of garrisons.

Since each faction has "noblemen," I have each province have a nobleman retinue in the garrison to represent the "baron" of the province. So, fo my Russians, in the early game I have a unit of Druzhina in each city/fortress to represent the baron and his bodyguard. In the late game, I make it one unit of Dvor cavalry and one unit of dismounted Dvor to represent the baron and his "household troops." Then, in each castle, I have about 5-6 peasant archers, two units of Dismounted Boyar Sons for wall defense, and two units of Spearmen for gate defense (mostly to be as effective as possible without a high cost of garrison). This represents the amount of troops the nobleman needs to be able to raise from his area in return for his land. For cities, I usually have the baron and his household troops along with militia for city defense, usually about 6 peasant archers, 4 crossbowmen, and whatever other troops I find necessary for a good defensive mix.

It makes it kind of fun to play, especially in the inward provinces. Local barons can then take forces out to deal with rebels in their own provinces instead of taking professional armies to complete the task, etc.

How do you guys do it? Are you strictly utilitarian, or do you add some RP elements for fun?

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I always have decent garrisons. Typically minimum of 6 varied units. Often large cities see full stacks with special cities seeing more. For example, playing Turks there are often 3-4 stacks around Constantinople for a large part of the game.

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Each knight who owned a knight's fee needed to provide a retinue of soldiers. In 1277, a retinue recorded in an English Parliament writ consisted of 12 light horse, 8 foot sergeants, 1 mounted crossbowmen, 6 archers, 7 boys with horses of low value, and 6 men armed with axes or spades, along with the knight himself on a heavy charger. Each of these retinues then made up the forces required to be provided by a tennant-in-chief to the King. In Germany, however, it was common for tennants-in-chief to hold their entire land instead of subletting, and provided their troop commitment by hiring knights for their service, known as household knights.

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Thanks for the info, very interesting. I guess these writs are the people that comprise the units available for recruitment in a province. I am guessing that upgrading your barracks to produce better units represents a wave of new military technology and thinking that is very slowly making its way through the region. (for example: back in the old days, my father needed to provide 8 sergeant spearmen, but today, I need to provide better "armoured seargents" to keep up with the evolution of warfare. :knight:

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Also, the entire population of men from 16 to 60 were able to be called upon at any time to defend the country in a time of emergency, known as a shire levy, but they were never required to complete foreign service. Each person needed to arm himself according to his wealth, with those owning chattels (personal property) between 9 and 20 marks required to arm themselves with a bow, those with 40 to 100 schillings had to have bows and swords, and those who had more than 15 pounds a year in income needed to fight mounted.

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LOL, I think George Bush is about to pass a shire levy. Seriously though, I was wondering if any countries today operate a government that grants land in return for military service? That would be a fun place to own some property.:duel:

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A knight's service was limited to 40 days at a time without pay, and could be required to serve longer with pay. These same knights were also obliged to serve in the garrisons of the royal and baronial castles, which ranged in length from two weeks to three months, with shorter periods served more than once a year and a constant rotation going so a castle was always well garrisoned.

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I guess that a units upkeep could be the cost of keeping armies in the field after their 40 day terms of service had ended. LOL, MTW2 provinces are so big that I should have enough land to have my units rotate their 40 days of service so that I shouldn't have to pay them upkeep at all. At least let their upkeep be free when on garrison duty like the militas. Maybe then the AI will have bigger garrison armies and be tougher to beat.:dizzy2: