Retinues

Retinues are your personal household troops. You get two per faction you play with:

  • Basic Retinue
  • Elite Retinue

They’re available from the start (no fief/kingdom required). They begin modest, but with time, gold, and effort, can become the strongest troops in your army due to the unlockable doctrine perks and their higher skill caps.

Party Limits

Your max number of retinues scales with your party size and settings:

  • Two separate caps: one for Basic Retinues, one for Elite Retinues.
  • Each cap is a ratio of your party size limit (configurable in Mod Options).
  • Some Doctrines increase retinue capacity. Notably:
    • Vanguard → +15% retinue cap (applies to both Basic and Elite retinues).

Check your Mod Options (MCM) to tune ratios, and explore Doctrines to push caps even higher.
→ See: Doctrines, Configuration

Hiring Retinues

There are two ways to bring retinues into your party:

1) Auto-hire up to a cap (daily):
Set a max hiring limit for Basic/Elite (see MCM and cap bonuses below). As you earn renown, new retinues will join automatically each day until you reach that limit (and as long as you have party space).

The required renown per tier can be tuned in the configuration menu.

2) Manual conversion (instant):
Convert existing troops into retinues instantly either from your custom lines or from a vanilla/culture equivalent, by paying a gold and influence cost.

Gold and influence costs can be tuned in the configuration menu.

Limitations

Retinues are not garrisonable, nor can they be transferred to another party, they are your personal troops and are meant to stay at your side.

Ranking Up

Retinues can rank up through tiers. Ranking up:

  • Raises their tier, increasing their potential strength and skill caps.
  • Costs gold (and XP if troop XP is enabled in your settings).
  • Requires the retinue’s skills to be maxed for the current tier first.
  • Basic Retinue cannot outrank the Elite Retinue of the same faction, so you’ll rank both in tandem if you want the basic to keep climbing.

If using the Tier 7 Troop Unlocker mod, retinues can be upgraded one more tier (T7 for elites and T6 for basic retinues).

You’ll find a Rank Up action in the Troops panel when conditions are met. The UI will tell you if something is blocking it (e.g., not enough gold/XP, skills not maxed yet).

Rank up costs can be tuned in the configuration menu.