Introduction/Recruiting

"How about recruiting? Any suggestions?"

"Plenty! First of all, you're going to need to head to the realm's capital. That's where all the training centers send their trained troops. Mostly it's tradition, but it's also so they get a little bit of city life before they go off to war.

"Once you're there, you'll need to figure out what sort of troops you'll want to command. When you're just starting out, you'll probably be limited to infantry, archers, or mixed infantry. The cavalry troops won't feel comfortable being led by such a new troop leader, and those special forces folks -- those snobs won't even give you the time of day `til you've come back covered in scars and glory. I've heard stories about special forces even refusing to work for one realm's Judge!

You raise your eyebrows and act suitably impressed.

"Anyway, your squire will head around to all the stalls and give you an estimate of what's available: What sort of troops, where they hail from, what kind of shape their equipment's in, how well-trained he thinks they are, and what mood they're in. He'll do a quick head count, too, and have a chat with their trainer about how much it'll cost you to hire them.

"You'll have to show up in person to do the actual hiring, and you'll need to bring cash. They'll want to have a look at you, and sound you out. No trainer worth his salt gives over too many of his boys to a green troop leader: it's bad for business if a large unit of his men loses a lot of battles. They get real upset with people who just want to hire one or two men, too -- these aren't bodyguards, after all, they're soldiers. You might get away with hiring as few as five of them at a time, but that's pushing it.

You listen carefully, but point out that you're not going to be recruiting fresh. Your family is supplying you with a dozen or so family retainers. You were just thinking about using some of the money they're giving you to add a few more men. Uncle Freddie nods.

"In that case, whichever you wind up getting, you'll need to add that type. If your family retainers are archers, you'll need to hire archers, because they don't get along with infantry."

"What about mixed infantry?", you ask

"That's something else entirely -- those are specially trained infantry. You can't just add archers to an infantry unit or something, you've got to hire men specifically trained that way."

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