Newb question: How do I see what units are free to garrison?

[Oxidious]

Hi,

I just started MTW2 and on my first game ended up getting like -400 a turn :o

I found out that garrisoning loads of troops in my cities was causing this, but I see people saying that towns have a certain number of "free troops" you can garrison.

Where do I look to see if the troops ive got garrisoned in a town are free or costing me?? Ive looked everywhere

thanks

[pwijnands]

Troops that are garrissoned for free have a different background color in their unit cards. Typically only militia units can be kept for free in a city (not a castle). Bigger cities allow more free upkeep troops.

[Mr Harold]

Hi,

I just started MTW2 and on my first game ended up getting like -400 a turn :o

I found out that garrisoning loads of troops in my cities was causing this, but I see people saying that towns have a certain number of "free troops" you can garrison.

Where do I look to see if the troops ive got garrisoned in a town are free or costing me?? Ive looked everywhere

thanks

If a units card is a darker shade of blue when it is in a province, it is free upkeep.

Try raising the taxes and sack some settlements

XKillerX

[Tankfriend]

You can also have a look at the description of your city walls where you'll find the maximum number of free units the corresponding city supports at the moment. (select a city, right klick on the symbol of the city walls in the overview at the bottom of the screen)

[Oxidious]

thanks for your help guys, I seem to have real trouble with finance in the game

I guess I have too many huge stacks of armies because I'm paranoid ill be attacked. do you generally have your armies stationed outside your towns ?

Im pretty scared to leave towns with like 4 troops garrisoned because theyll lose the city if its attacked.

[Tankfriend]

Try to cover your territory (especially the borders) with watchtowers, so you get a good look at all the surrounding territories (can be build by generals on the map).
That way, you can see if an enemy is approaching and you can get your army on the move to intercept him; in turn, you can also reduce your garrisons to the free minimum which in turn saves you a lot of money.

[NobleNick]

...I guess I have too many huge stacks of armies because I'm paranoid ill be attacked. do you generally have your armies stationed outside your towns ?

Im pretty scared to leave towns with like 4 troops garrisoned because theyll lose the city if its attacked.

Welcome to the forum, Oxidious! We hope your stay is long and pleasant.

Depending on how you did at building public order buildings, you can get by with 2 or even 1 unit in some cities. I typically keep as many garrison as I can for free; sometimes a few more if PO requires it. Several key points have been mentioned, but I will attempt to summarize:

Using watch towers is a great idea, which I use heavily. My territories are plastered with watch towers (average of maybe 2 towers per territory). This saves you a lot when you realize that a tower costs 200 florins, but two extra garrison units cost over 200 florins per turn. Then I have spies out beyond that. So I can see a stack coming at least 3 turns before it gets to an interior town. Three turns buys you a lot: You can build 3 units in the target city, plus move in four units from adjacent territories. So your garrison grows from 2 units to 2 + 3 + 4 = 9 units. Nice. You will typically have a partial stack in your interior to squash rebels which pop up. You can move this over to further increase your defense of the town.

And if an enemy should, on the outside chance, barely succeed in taking an interior settlement from you, so what? They are surrounded by your settlements. Simply build non-stop in each of the four surrounding settlements for 2 turns and take you new stack over to the beleagered offender and lay some smack down on him.

Another thing to remember, is that if you are aggressing like you should, most of your neighbors will be fighting to take back border towns which you just took from them; or defending the threat which YOU pose to THEIR internal settlements.

Move the surplus troops you have (especially the expensive elite ones) to the border, and create fear and loathing in your enemies.

On the -400 per turn: It could also be that your economy is not chugging along like it should. You should have about 4 highly developed towns for each castle. You should not be building the higher levels of farms in settlements with PO problems. And taxes should be on VERY HIGH in all your non-castle settlements. You should, in general, be able to have VERY HIGH taxes in your cities, with a garrison of 2 to 4 militia units. I am not pulling your funnybone: this can be done (at least it can in the England and Moors long campaigns which I have finished in vanilla 1.2 M2TW).

This allows you to reinforce neighbor settlements quickly: Just pop out a few of your city's garrison to go reinforce; lower taxes to get a non-red face; and IMMEDIATELY queue up replacement militia to be trainied for next turn. (Do not forget to return taxes to VERY HIGH at the next turn.)

I hope that helps.

[Oxidious]

Welcome to the forum, Oxidious! We hope your stay is long and pleasant.

Depending on how you did at building public order buildings, you can get by with 2 or even 1 unit in some cities. I typically keep as many garrison as I can for free; sometimes a few more if PO requires it. Several key points have been mentioned, but I will attempt to summarize:

Using watch towers is a great idea, which I use heavily. My territories are plastered with watch towers (average of maybe 2 towers per territory). This saves you a lot when you realize that a tower costs 200 florins, but two extra garrison units cost over 200 florins per turn. Then I have spies out beyond that. So I can see a stack coming at least 3 turns before it gets to an interior town. Three turns buys you a lot: You can build 3 units in the target city, plus move in four units from adjacent territories. So your garrison grows from 2 units to 2 + 3 + 4 = 9 units. Nice. You will typically have a partial stack in your interior to squash rebels which pop up. You can move this over to further increase your defense of the town.

And if an enemy should, on the outside chance, barely succeed in taking an interior settlement from you, so what? They are surrounded by your settlements. Simply build non-stop in each of the four surrounding settlements for 2 turns and take you new stack over to the beleagered offender and lay some smack down on him.

Another thing to remember, is that if you are aggressing like you should, most of your neighbors will be fighting to take back border towns which you just took from them; or defending the threat which YOU pose to THEIR internal settlements.

Move the surplus troops you have (especially the expensive elite ones) to the border, and create fear and loathing in your enemies.

On the -400 per turn: It could also be that your economy is not chugging along like it should. You should have about 4 highly developed towns for each castle. You should not be building the higher levels of farms in settlements with PO problems. And taxes should be on VERY HIGH in all your non-castle settlements. You should, in general, be able to have VERY HIGH taxes in your cities, with a garrison of 2 to 4 militia units. I am not pulling your funnybone: this can be done (at least it can in the England and Moors long campaigns which I have finished in vanilla 1.2 M2TW).

This allows you to reinforce neighbor settlements quickly: Just pop out a few of your city's garrison to go reinforce; lower taxes to get a non-red face; and IMMEDIATELY queue up replacement militia to be trainied for next turn. (Do not forget to return taxes to VERY HIGH at the next turn.)

I hope that helps.

thanks a lot for your help, very helpfull post.

That -400 was just my first game as England in vanilla, I managed to get a bit more money.

I started a game in the crusaders campaign and am getting lots of money and blitzing now

[Valbruch]

I usually keep a garrison of 4 - 6 units. A bit more if the settlement is on the border.

As pwijnands said, usually only militia has free upkeep and only in cities. And I'd like to add that there is a building for castles that gives free upkeep slot too (for cavalry I believe). I forgot the name, but it is some jousting ground.

[pwijnands]

4 militia units can cause massive casualties if you put them on the town square. Especially when you give them upgrades and they've already got some experience. If the AI decides to attack with one unit at a time you might even win.

[Tankfriend]

4 militia units can cause massive casualties if you put them on the town square. Especially when you give them upgrades and they've already got some experience. If the AI decides to attack with one unit at a time you might even win.

Exactly right, never underestimate militia units.

A very devastating method that I put to use is forming schiltron with 2 spear militia units (or similar if you can afford) and putting them right in front of the city/castle gate or a breach in a wall (on your side of the wall of course) so they overlap each other a bit - that way, they can hold out against a far superior force for quite a long time because the enemy units have to funnel through the gate/breach, effectively denying them any effective formation whereas the defending units get a huge defensive bonus due to the schiltron formation.

[N3rull]

One thing I recon needs to be added.

A city can support a number of militia units that is mentioned in its walls' description (it's 2 for pallisade, 3 for wooden wall, 4 for stone wall, 5 for large and 6 for huge stone wall).
BUT
the city will only give free upkeep to militia units that it can produce.
So, say you're playing England and you move Heavy Bill Militia to a city without Militia/Army Barracks (one of the two last stages of the barracks line, which can produce Heavy Bill Militia). Such a city will not give them free upkeep, you'll have to pay for them, even if they're the only unit in the city.
I once saw spear militia 'free' in a city which couldn't make them, but it was just once in a dozen campaigns, dunno wtf.