Clan & Kingdom Troops

Besides the special Retinues, there are several kinds of faction-bound custom troops you can build:

  • Clan Troops (tied to your clan)
  • Kingdom Troops (tied to your kingdom)

Unlike Retinues (your personal household guard), faction troops are the broader troop trees and special troops that populate your rosters, parties, garrisons, volunteers, caravans, and villager parties.

Each faction (clan or kingdom) provides:

  • An Elite Tree (noble line)
  • A Basic Tree (non-noble line)
  • Unlockable Special Troops (Militias, Caravan Guards, Caravan Masters, Villagers) aligned with your culture

Unlocking

  • Clan Troops → unlock when you acquire your first fief.
  • Kingdom Troops → unlock when you found your own kingdom.

On unlock, you choose how to initialize that faction’s troop trees:

  • Start from scratch: minimal roots at low tier; build up over time.
  • Clone entire culture tree: instantly copy the vanilla culture lines as a starting point.

This choice is per faction (clan vs kingdom) and not reversible for that faction.

Militias and special troops unlock via doctrines (see Doctrines):

  • Stalwart Militia → unlocks custom militias.
  • Road Wardens → unlocks custom caravan guards and caravan masters.
  • Armed Peasantry → unlocks custom villagers.

Recruitment

Faction troops join your army the vanilla way:

  • Clan troops are available in any settlement owned by your clan.
  • Kingdom troops are available in any settlement owned by another clan of your kingdom.

It might take an in-game day or two for volunteers to refresh after unlocking a custom troop tree.

  • Restrict To Owned Settlements: disable in MCM to recruit your clan/kingdom custom troops from any settlement. Leave enabled for stricter, more “realistic” availability.

Retinues-specific auto-hire and manual conversion do not apply here; those are for the Retinues only.

Militias & Special Troops

Militias

  • Unlock the Stalwart Militia doctrine to gain access to customizable militias.
  • Custom militias replace the default cultural ones in your faction’s fiefs automatically (daily swap).
  • You can edit their equipment, skills, and name from the Troops editor, but:
    • They are still used as militia garrison troops in your settlements.
    • Their availability is tied to your faction’s fiefs, not to normal volunteer lines.

Caravan Guards, Caravan Masters & Villagers

  • Unlock the Road Wardens and Armed Peasantry doctrines to gain access to custom Caravan Guards, Caravan Masters, and Villagers.
  • When unlocked for a faction:
    • Retinues creates custom versions of:
      • Caravan Guard
      • Caravan Master
      • Villager
    • These custom troops replace the vanilla culture ones for:
      • Your faction’s caravans (guards & masters).
      • Your faction’s villager parties.
  • You can edit them in the Clan → Troops editor like any other custom troop.

Captains

  • Unlock the Captains doctrine to gain access to Captain variants of regular troops.
  • A Captain is a stronger version of a regular troop:
    • Always +1 tier compared to its base troop.
    • Shares the same role and upgrade branch as its base.
  • When Captains are enabled:
    • 1 in 15 spawns of that troop will be the Captain variant instead of the base troop.
  • Captains are edited in Captain Mode in the editor:
    • They have their own equipment and appearance.
    • They share XP with their base troop.
    • Equipping items already worn by the base troop is free for the Captain (and vice versa).

Upgrades & Removal

When can I add an upgrade?

You can add a new upgrade to a troop only if all of the following hold:

  • Regular troops only. Retinues and special troops cannot receive upgrade targets.
  • Not at max tier. Max-tier troops can’t branch further.
  • Upgrade slots remain.
    • Basic troops: up to 2 upgrades.
    • Elite troops: 1 upgrade by default, 2 if the Masters at Arms doctrine is unlocked.
  • Context allows editing. If your settings restrict editing to settlements/fiefs, you must be in the right place.

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

What gets copied into the new upgrade?
When you confirm the new name, the game creates a child troop and copies skills from the parent (but not equipment, unless equipment is free and instant), and sets its tier to one above its parent.

When can I remove a troop?

You can remove a troop only if:

  • It’s not a militia and not a retinue (regular faction troops only).
  • It is deletable:
    • Root troops (troops with no parent) can’t be removed.
    • Troops that have upgrade targets can’t be removed (remove their upgrades first).
  • Context allows editing (same settlement/fief rules as above). The removal action checks this and blocks with a popup if disallowed.

What happens when I remove a troop?

  1. Any staged equipment/skill changes for that troop are cleared.
  2. Its equipment is stocked for later use.
  3. Any existing units of that troop in your world are converted to their culture counterpart.

Import / Export

  • Custom troops can be exported and imported from one save to another via the global editor or the mod config menu.
  • This includes clan troops, kingdom troops and special troops (Militias, Caravan Guards, Caravan Masters, Villagers), as long as they belong to your custom trees.

→ See: Importing and Exporting Troops