Introduction:

If this is your first time playing the "Restoring the peace" scenario, we need to cover some basics first. If you have only played "Rise to prosperity" until now, you need to be aware that this is gonna be a completely different experience. This won't be a relaxing bit of city building, but a race against the clock for survival for a good portion of the game. Combat and strategy will play a vital role. Mismanagement and lack of planning can spell your downfall. Your off-map opponents might seem overpowered at the start, but they are not. You can absolutely catch up to them, even rather quickly so, if you follow the guidelines laid out in this walkthrough. But they will absolutely start out with way more military strength than you can muster. It will probably look hopeless at some point. But it usually isn't.


Save often!
I recommend setting your auto-save function to intervals of 5 minutes. And manually save at critical points in the game. Namely before every military engagement.

Military basics:
You will absolutely need a military, and for that you need three things: Money in your personal treasury to hire mercenaries, level 2 burgage plots to make into blacksmiths, joiners and bowyers so you can make weapons and shields, and manpower. Which means you need new families as fast as you can get them. And for that you need to expand your town as fast as possible.

No Iron = Archers it is!
If your starting region has a salt deposit, you will be unable to mine for iron until you take another region. That does not mean you have no means to defend yourself, though. You can make wood planks into bows and raise your militia as archers. Archers are the weakest military unit in the game, but they can be used effectively:

How to win with archers: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IIUztP2G1vc

They also need no helmets or armour, because they are not intended for close quarters combat anyway. They CAN survive a close quarters combat situation with brigands, but only if other archers help them by flanking, as shown above. And they might still suffer casualties that way. So use them wisely.

Optimal Start:
For an Optimal Start, I recommend the aptly named guide by forum user "Fortigan": Optimal Start

I recommend building your first buildings right around your starting position, even if you do not intend to build your town there. The faster your first buildings are done, the quicker you get rid of the homeless debuff which tanks your approval ratings, and the faster you get more families.

Strategic town building:
"Why would I not want to build my town around my starting position?" you might ask. During the game, raiding brigands will appear in intervals of 2 years by default, less than that on challenging difficulty. Those raiders will always appear from a randomly chosen edge of the map, and that edge might be right next to your town, giving you no time at all to react and defend yourself if your town is too close to the map's edge.

So I recommend building your town as close to Waldbrand - the central region - as possible. You might also consider rerolling your starting position until you get a start in Waldbrand itself, which has the best strategic position on the whole map.

Deal with bandits -> get treasury money -> hire mercenaries!
Once you have built your first 5 burgage plots and a storehouse, you will receive a shipment of weapons - 20 spears and 20 large shields (unless you play on challenging difficulty, but this guide won't cover that). A message will appear to tell you to raise your militia. And this is exactly what you should do. By this point in the game you will probably have received messages about bandits stealing goods from your village. The standard "Restoring the peace" scenario starts with 1 bandit camp already on the map. Others may pop up at random intervals. Essentially, every new month has a chance to spawn another bandit camp. Unless routed in battle, these bandits will continue stealing randomly selected resources from your town with impunity. Your task is to eliminate them and destroy their camps to take their loot for yourself. This is the way to gain influence - which you can later use to claim new regions - and treasury money, which you can and should use to hire mercenaries.


To recap what the video guide shows: You immediately raise your first militia, even if it is only 8 people or so. You do not intend to let them fight directly against the bandits, only to loot the bandits' camp and lure them into combat with mercenaries you're gonna hire with the treasury money you got from the destroyed camp.

You raise your militia and immediately tell them to NOT RUN, only march. This will save their stamina, which is important in every fight. So make a habit out of doing that every time you raise your militia!
You approach the bandit camp with your militia until you notice the bandits leaving the camp and moving towards your militiamen. This is an excellent point in time to make a manual savegame. You lure the bandits away from their camp and let them close enough to your militia until they are closer to your troops than they are to their camp. Then you tell your militia to start running and run them around the approaching bandits, avoiding combat with them, and run straight to their camp to destroy and loot it.

Once you have destroyed it, a message will appear. Open the message, it will tell you that you got loot and ask you where to put it, into your region or your treasury. Put it in your treasury! With the money you now gained you will be able to hire a mercenary group. Go into the military tab, click on the big (+) sign and choose a group of mercenaries that is mainly composed of close combat fighters. Local thugs or hired brigands will suffice for the time being. The "Battle Brothers" are also an excellent choice, as they cost only 50 silver to hire and come as two fully equipped and lightly armored troops of frontline fighters.

Your mercenaries will always appear from a predetermined edge of the map. Use your militia to lure the still pursuing bandits towards the mercenaries, and march or run your mercenaries towards the bandits to intercept. If you have only the local thugs because you decided to be prudent with your money, they might need your militia's aid in defeating the bandits, but otherwise, you will be able to leave the fighting to your mercs.

If the baron manages to send out mercenaries of his own to attack bandit camps, you ought to try the same tactic as described above, but hire no mercenaries - instead, lure the bandits towards the baron's mercenaries once you have looted their camp. Once you get them to engage with the baron's men, turn around and charge the brigands from the back.

Thus you will gain your first few hundred points of influence. Once you have 1000 points of influence, you can claim a neutral region and should immediately do so. I recommend claiming the region that is farthest away from you first, as this will prevent bandit camps spawning too far away from you.

Depending on your difficulty setting, the baron's AI will be set to "reactive", "balanced" or "aggressive". In reactive mode, he will usually start sending mercenaries to attack bandit camps towards the second half or end of the second year. In balanced mode, towards the start of the second year, and in challenging mode he will start attacking bandits almost right away.

He will use the money to hire mercenaries and the influence to claim regions. If you can, you ought to be faster than him. If he claims every region but your own, he will sooner or later lay claim to your town as well, and at that point at the very latest you must be able to defend yourself.

The Mercenaries:

There are a total of 9 groups of mercenaries.

The best mercenary companies are:
1. The Huntsmen: 250 silver for 72 (2x36) elite crossbowmen (yes, they are *that* deadly)
2. The Ravenous Vultures: 110 silver for 108 (3x36) swordsmen
3. The Flock of Crazy Geese: 90 silver for 36 swordsmen, 36 spearmen & 36 archers
4. The Greencaps: 90 silver for 72 (2x36) swordsmen & 36 archers
5. The Battle Brothers: 50 silver for 36 swordsmen & 36 spearmen
6. The Wayward Sons: 45 silver for 72 (2x36) archers

The lesser mercenary groups are:

7. The Brotherhood of the Forest: 60 silver for 18 brigands & 36 archers.
8. The Brigands for Hire: 30 silver for 36 (2x18) brigands
9. The Local Thugs: 15 silver for 18 brigands.

Do not underestimate brigands as mercenaries, though: Enemy brigands have been recorded prioritizing hired mercenary brigands as targets, so you might find brigands useful as bait and for kiting enemy raiders right into a trap!

Which mercenary companies are available may change from month to month.

Keeping Mercenaries available:
Many players complain about mercenaries gradually disappearing from the list of available troops until either only the Wayward Sons or nothing at all is left.

This is happening because "Restoring the peace", at least at this moment of build 0.8004 is a contest between the baron Hildebolt von Berenreute and YOU about who can hire the mercenaries faster and keep them on payroll longer.

At some point during the first 2 years, the baron will start hiring mercenaries to attack bandit camps. You can only prevent him from doing so by being faster.

That means you have to be alerted every time a bandit camp is spotted. For this to be as noticable as possible for you, you might want to go into your sound menu and make sure that "Alerts and Notifications" is not deactivated, and indeed the volume for those sounds is turned up to 100%. Maybe even all other sounds should be reduced, because otherwise, the notification that a bandit camp has been spotted can easily escape your attention.

If your sound settings are right, an alarming sound like a battlecry from a chorus of voices will be heard whenever a bandit camp is spotted. The very moment this happens, you hit (SPACEBAR) to pause the game. A small text notification at the top of your screen below the UI should tell you that a bandit camp has been spotted. Zoom out to the map of all regions and try to find the small icon with the tent to find out where the bandit camp spawned.

If this is your first bandit camp, proceed as described in the previous section. If you already have treasury money, hire as many of the best available mercenaries from the list as you can and use them to destroy and loot the bandit camp.

Once you have 250-300 treasury money, you will be able to hire ALL available mercenaries whenever a bandit camp is sighted (or at least all of them that you want). It may appear as overkill against one small band of brigands, but here's why you might want to do that:

Whenever the baron hires a band of mercenaries, there is a chance that this group of mercenaries is bought off permanently and completely disappears from the list of available mercs for the rest of the game. By buying them up faster than him, you can prevent that from happening and thus keep the mercenaries available until the end of the game.

For this, you will essentially need to keep your treasury money high enough (~300-500 treasury silver) to completely buy up all available mercs that are on the list in any given month.
The instances where you want to do this are:

1. Whenever a bandit camp is sighted (pause game, buy all mercs, stomp bandits, put camp loot in treasury)
2. Whenever you want to contest one of the baron's territorial claims (because otherwise he will reinforce his own army with all mercenaries that you left available)
3. Whenever you want to claim one of the baron's territories (same reason as for 2.)

Do it BEFORE the baron has any chance to hire them, and you'll keep them available until the end game.

How to defend against your first raid:

At the start of the second year, a message will appear that raiders have been sighted approaching the region, and you will be presented with the option to "track their progress". If you click on that, a countdown till the arrival of those raiders on the map will appear in the bottom left corner of the screen. It will usually take them a year to do so. So you have a second year to prepare.

Different players report different experiences with their first raid. Some say it was just one group of 18 raiders, some say it was 36, some say it was 54...

If you followed the guide up to this point, you will have enough treasury money to hire at least the "Battle Brothers", maybe even the "Greencaps", the "Flock of Crazy Geese" or the "Ravenous Vultures" to intercept the raiders at this point. The baron has been known to sometimes also hire mercenaries to fight against raiders, so you might want to make sure he can't and hire all available mercs, if possible.

If you've followed the aforementioned advice and made "Alerts and Notifications" audible, a bandit raiding party arriving on the map should be announced with a drumbeat and a battlecry from a multitude of voices sounding from far away. At the top of your screen in the message scroll there will also be a text message telling you that enemy troops have been sighted. If you click on this message, your view will jump to the current location of the raiders, and you will be able to identify the direction they're coming from.

Important!: If you feel that they spawned in too close to your town and you have no time to mount a defense, you CAN load the previous autosave, and the next time they spawn they will most probably appear in a different location, as their starting position on the map is always randomized.

But, even if you don't want to savescum, you ought to be able to prevent them from burning and pillaging, if you followed the aforementioned advice and built your town center as close to Waldbrand as possible. That will give you time to raise your militia or retinue and use those to draw the attention of the raiders and lure them away from your settlement, while giving your mercenaries time to intercept them.

If you do not, for some reason, have the ability to rely on mercenaries for defense during your first raid, you should, at this point, have at least one retinue of 5 - 12 men-at-arms, one militia of 18-20 spearmen and (if you didn't have any iron) two groups of 15-30 archers each. That should suffice to deal with the first bandit raid.

If you have even significantly less than that, watch this video to see how to deal with a bandit raid even with inferior numbers:


I can highly recommend Manor Lords related videos made by this youtuber by the name of Tacticat. He also has a full on guide about 1 hour and 20 minutes long, showing how to play a standard difficulty "Restoring the peace" scenario:

Even though this was recorded on a previous build of the game before the latest update, the strategies and tactics he demonstrates are still valid.

1. Troop types, strengths and weaknesses:

In Manor Lords, you have a variety of troop types among militia, retinue and mercenaries. These are their strengths and weaknesses:


1.1 Spearmen:
Your first type of militia consists of spearmen that you can form once you have received your shipment of armaments. Spearmen need 1 spear and 1 large shield for each recruit.
While spearmen are one of the weakest units in offense, they make up for it in defense. They have the highest protection against bolts and arrows and also have a special stat called "Impaling" that lets them deal instant bonus damage to any enemy unit charging them from the front. This makes them the ideal defensive unit, able to tank enemy attacks and survive even a frontal charge with minimal casualties or even none at all. Since they are really well protected against arrows, they are also ideal to hunt down enemy archers.


1.2 Footmen:
Your backyard workshops for crafting armaments will be the blacksmith, joiner and bowyer. The blacksmith, once built, will start making sidearms by default. The joiner is set to make small shields by default. Both are used to arm footmen. They are the best all-round unit in the game. Less defense than spearmen, but more offensive power. Less protected against arrows, but still good enough to hunt down enemy archers. Footmen are definitely not so much a defensive unit but much rather an offensive one. You don't want them to try and tank an enemy charge without countercharging. They are best used to intercept enemy flanking units or to flank enemies and charge into their backs themselves.


1.3 Polearms:
Polearms need no shields, only halberds and glaives made in the blacksmith's workshop. They have the lowest defensive stats of all melee units, but make up for it in offense. When spearmen are your anvil, polearms are your hammer. Their stats "armour-piercing" and "charge bonus" give them the highest damage output when landing a good charge, even against armoured targets such as enemy mercs and retinue. They are vulnerable to arrows or bolts, though, and should only be used to flank, not to frontally charge against enemy infantry.


1.4 Retinue:
Men-at-Arms that you hire from your retinue customization menu by spending treasury money make up your personal regional retinue. They come pre-equipped with chainmail and helmet as well as a polearm or sidearm & small shield. Their armour can be upgraded to plate mail with treasury money using the retinue customization menu. To access this menu, click on the military tab once you've built a manor. Click on the retinue in question. Next to the "rally" icon there will be another icon with a paintbrush on it. That is the customization menu. It lets you customize their appearance, as well as hire new men-at-arms and upgrade their armour for treasury money.
Retinue are heavy infantry. They have the least stamina of all melee troops due to their heavy armour, so use their "run" ability sparingly! They have the highest armour stat of all melee troops, though, even if they are not as well-protected against arrows and bolts as spearmen, they can survive melee damage pretty well and also dish out massive damage themselves. They are also best used like footmen or polearms, but can only sprint across short distances.


1.5 Archers:
Archers are the cheapest and weakest ranged unit, but that does not make them nearly as worthless as they are often called. While inferior to crossbowmen in every aspect, they are easy to equip since they only need wood planks for bows made by the bowyer, and once you've mastered flanking with them, you'll be happy to have them around. They are also great at defending fortified manors, but more on that later! They have the highest reload frequency and the highest range of all ranged units at the moment, but also the lowest damage output, and are weak against armoured targets. But they deal massive damage to enemy morale, and can rout enemy units even without causing many casualties to them. Use their standard volley fire to soften up and demoralize enemy infantry from afar, then switch to "fire at will" and run them around the frontline to shoot into the enemies' backs once they are engaged with your melee troops. This will usually rout the enemy infantry rather quickly.


1.5 Crossbowmen:
Crossbowmen are essentially what most players always expected the archers to be, and were then disappointed that archers needed a bit of micromanagement to be used effectively. Crossbowmen don't need micromanagement. You place them behind your spearmen and let them decimate approaching enemy infantry. They don't need to flank, they don't need to move at all. They just need protection against melee units. Their range and reload time might be inferior to archers, but they more than make up for it in firepower. They shoot armour-piercing bolts that can easily kill so many infantrymen that the whole regiment might decide to flee before even engaging with your melee troops. They are also the most expensive militia unit to make since their weapons require special metal parts made from iron slabs in a blacksmith's workshop, as well as planks. Their effectiveness in ranged combat is unmatched, and it is no wonder why the most expensive mercenary unit consists of two groups of crossbowmen. A combination of spearmen and crossbowmen is an absolutely deadly type of militia!

2. Types of armour and their advantages

There are 4 types of armour in the game at the moment. Helmets, gambesons, chainmail and plate mail. Helmets can be equipped by every type of militiaman and will slightly increase their survivability in battle. Gambesons can only be equipped by militiamen from level 2 burgage plots and will increase their armour-stat and thus their protection against arrows and melee damage. Chainmail can only be equipped by militiamen from level 3 burgage plots and will not only increase their armour-stat to maximum protection against arrows and melee damage, but also give every unit equipped with it a "charge" bonus increase, making their charges more impactful and thus deal more damage to the enemy.

Plate armour is reserved for men-at-arms in your retinue. It can be built in an armourer's workshop if you have invested the development points to unlock plate crafting, or you can simply buy each of your retainers a set of plate mail individually in the retinue customization menu. Plate armour cannot be worn by militia, therefore it is best you do not waste any development points on "armourmaking".

The heavier the armour of a military unit, the faster it depletes its stamina while running and fighting. It is best to march armoured troops instead of rushing them to their rallying points.

1. Battle stances and maneuvers:

When you click on a unit to select it, a small set of icons appears above the bottom screen UI. It contains the battle stances and other types of commands that you can give your troops. Professional soldiers such as men-at-arms and mercenaries will have some more options than militiamen, such as "spread out", which slightly increases marching speed, or "shield wall", which packs the formation tighter and makes it more defensible, but immobile. The battle stances are:

"Give Ground"
When engaged in melee, your troops will slowly retreat while fighting. At the moment, this battle stance does not have much use and simply increases your troops' casualties. I would recommend to avoid it.

"Missile Alert!"
This battle stance commands your troops to pay attention to incoming arrows and avoid them if possible. This lowers their defence against melee units, however. So use it wisely!

"Balanced"
This is your standard mode with no advantages or disadvantages.

"Stand your Ground!"
This tells your troops to hold the formation and put all their power into defense. It halves their attack speed but increases their defensive stats, so it is perfect for spearmen trying to tank enemy charges.

"Push forward!"
This is the opposite of "Give Ground". It not only pushes the enemy back, but also increases attack speed, but also lowers the unit's defense as they concentrate on offense. In combination with "run", this leads to a running charge into the enemy lines and is perfect for flanking and interception maneuvers, as well as running down retreating archers. Even ranged troops like archers can use a combination of "run" and "push forward" to charge into melee and use their sidearms.

"Shoot at will!"
This ability allows archers (not crossbowmen) to quit shooting in coordinated long-range volleys and instead take aim from a short distance and shoot much more accurately and deadly. This is essential for flanking maneuvers with archers.

"Friendly Fire!"
This allows archers to fire into melee even from behind their own troops. The risk of killing your own frontline soldiers is not worth it, though... I would recommend to avoid it.


2. Know your foe: The baron's armies


This is what I usually call the baron's "expeditionary force": A small army consisting of 1x36 retinue in chainmail and helmet, 1x36 archers in gambeson and helmet, 2x36 footmen in gambeson and helmet and 1x18 unarmoured brigands. 162 men in total.

Your own starting region alone is able to muster up to 6x36 militiamen and 1x24 retinue = 240 men. So once you have maxed out your militia and retinue, you can more than match his expeditionary force.

However: If you try to attack one of the baron's regions, and you have not bought up all available mercenaries once he declares war on you, then you might end up in a situation like this:

As you can see, in this scenario I was trying to take Selbitz, but did not buy up all mercenaries before I did press my claim. So the baron took them. And instead of me being able to supplement my two spearmen units with brigands, footmen and archers, now my two spearmen units face not only the whole expeditionary force of the baron entering Selbitz from the north, but also all available mercenaries entering Hofstetten from the north. Suddenly I am facing two enemy armies and am forced to retreat and leave the battlefield alone.

Don't make that same mistake, or it might cost you not only the influence points you spent, but also the mercenaries... in my case, those merc groups were gone forever from the mercenary tab afterwards. If you don't make such mistakes, the baron's expeditionary force is usually not that hard to defeat, though. However, if you press your claim towards his last remaining region, you will face a much more formidable army. I call it "the baron's last stand":


2x36 retinue in chainmail and helmet, 4x36 footmen in gambeson and helmet, 2x36 spearmen in gambeson and helmet, 3x36 archers in gambeson and helmet and 1x18 unarmoured brigands.
414 men in total.

And he can also reinforce this army with mercenaries, if you let him. So don't let him.

3. How to increase your army size:

Under normal circumstances, you are stuck with 1 retinue and 6 milita groups from your main town, and that is enough to match the baron's expeditionary force and also repel any raiders, but it won't help you against his final army in "the baron's last stand". Although there is also a workaround for that - which I will get into later.

In order to increase your army size, you will have to take as many regions as possible, and also settle all regions. You don't have to build a full new large town there, a medium or large village will be more than sufficient:

24 level 2 houses, 1 manor with garrison tower for 24 retinue, 1 morgen of apple orchards, 1 morgen of vegetable gardens, "advanced skinning" + "hunting grounds" policy activated for continuous hunting and abundant meat, and chicken coops in all smaller burgage backyards will give enough food to a village of ~100people.

The most important part here is the manor with garrison tower, as it allows you to form another retinue of 24 heavily armoured men-at-arms. Every single region can house 1 manor each, and thus can provide 1 additional retinue for your army, so that even without any mercenaries, your endgame army can look like this:


You will notice, however, that this army has indeed 8 (!) groups of militia and not 6. But isn't the game's built-in limit at 6 groups of militia? Kind of, yes it is... but there is a little workaround. Some might call it an exploit. And I recommend that, if you intend to use it, do it before you try to provide your militias with armour. Because otherwise, it gets expensive for you:


Essentially, you start a fight with the baron intent on losing. You send 2 of your militia groups into melee with his complete army and wait until they "break and run". Then you pause the game, go into the military tab and make sure their unit cards are greyed out and unavailable. At this point, the game does no longer register those two militia groups as being part of your militia. So it allows you to form up to two new militia groups. This only works once and up to a total of 8 militia groups. As long as your two defeated militia groups are "broken" and unavailable, you can center your view on one of your towns that hopefully has a surplus of possible recruits as well as the necessary weapons in stock, and you can then go into the military tab and form up to two new groups of militia:

Your "broken" groups of militia will eventually respawn in a decimated state outside their former battlefield, and you can then bring them home and dismiss them from service so they can slowly replenish their numbers.

1. How to set up a good defense against invasions

The first raid in the game is announced early with a warning message and an available countdown until the raiders arrive, so it is easy to prepare for. All subsequent raids occur in intervals of about 2 years in standard difficulty, less if you play on challenging difficulty or have modified the starting conditions (be aware, modifying starting conditions will deactivate achievements!). Those later raids will also contain more brigands. Up to 72 (4x18) in the current build (0.8004 Early Access Version).

Invasions by the baron's army come with a warning, though. Every time the baron claims a region, you will be alerted with a message popping up on the top left corner of the screen and a progress bar that indicates how long you still have to contest his claim before he wins the region uncontested. If you allow the baron to take your one and only home region uncontested, of course, that is game over for you. Currently, there will be no game over screen yet, but you will become unable to do anything. You won't be able to select anything, build anything, etc.

There are several ways to defend against invasions:

a) If you have an iron deposit, you can make sidearms and small shields in your level 2 joiners and blacksmith workshops, simply rely on only footmen for militia, and just use them to rush the enemy in running charges ("push forward" mode + "run")

b) You might also have inferior numbers, so you might want to rely on spearmen and position them on top of a hill, preferrably near to a forest's edge that the enemies have to cross first to come to you. Crossing forests and having to fight uphill severely damages a military unit's morale and reduces their fighting power, while fighting downhill boosts your own unit's fighting power.

c) If you have to rely on archers, because your home region does not have any iron deposits, you might want to think about building a fortified manor between the map's edge and your town:



Here's how to defend your town using forts as a defensive position:
Forts are overpowered in Manor Lords


Yes, some enemy soldiers will slip through the outer fence of the fortified manor and threaten your archers, so it is recommended to use your spearmen to plug the only entrance from the inside and use your retinue to react to any enemy foot soldiers slipping through the fence.

Let's be honest with ourselves: This might not be programmed perfectly, but it IS realistic - the outer "wall" of the manor currently is nothing but a tall fence, not even a palisade. And even those could be climbed by determined attackers.

However, most of the enemy brigands or mercenaries will try to move around the fences and storm the gate, where your spearmen wait for them while your archers can continuously shoot at them from both sides.

2. Example how to use formations for a defensive field battle:



The spearmen are forming two wedge formations to shelter the crossbowmen and also give them multiple attack angles. The retinue is in the middle as bait for enemy infantry, who seems to favour close quarters with retinues. Hint: hired brigands or mercenary archers are also excellent as bait, they are good at drawing aggro!

If enemy infantry attacks the retinue, it will be shot into both flanks by crossbowmen. If it attacks the column of spearmen left or right to the retinue, they will get shot into the front and back by crossbowmen and can be flanked by the retinue. If they try to outflank the whole formation, the outer two columns of spearmen stand ready to block or intercept any attacks.

Also, the crossbowmen can fire into them as they make their flanking maneuver. Should all enemy units attack the middle, the spearmen can wrap around and encircle them. Once enough enemy infantry is decimated, one or several units of spearmen can be put into "push forward" and "run" mode and chase down the enemy archers.

Here's that same formation, simply scaled up for the last big battle:



Additional retinues are stationed at the flanks to intercept enemy flanking units. Put them in "run" + "push forward" mode, but only intercept once enemies come close, as running over great distances will deplete their stamina too much!

3. How to properly start a territorial battle and conquer an enemy region:

There are two ways to start a territorial battle with the baron: Either you claim one of his regions, or you contest one of his claims towards a neutral region, or one of your own. During the course of the scenario "Restoring the peace", the baron might start to claim neutral territories. If he is set to "balanced" AI mode, as is standard, he will usually claim as many neutral territories as there are, and finally, at the end, start claiming your region(s). So you have some time before you absolutely have to engage in battle with him. The more you concentrate on taking bandit camps and mercenaries before he can, the slower his progress will be, and vice versa.

Now, if the baron tries to claim a neutral region, a message with a progress bar will pop up on screen to inform you that, unless you want to contest that claim, the baron will take that region in a matter of days. Even if you do not have the army to defeat his expeditionary force of 162 men at this point, it is always a smart tactic to contest his claim. Not right away of course, but only just before the progress bar is full. This activates the "battle for (region name)" mode, as demonstrated by this message on the top left corner of your screen:

Next to this message, a looking glass icon appears, and if you hover your mouse cursor over that icon, the location of the designated field of battle where you have to meet the enemy troops will be revealed on the map with a giant yellow circle with crossed swords inside.

The enemy's troops will spawn on the edge of the map. If you haven't bought up any mercenaries by this point, they will probably also spawn nearby and reinforce the baron's army. Also, they might become unavailable for the rest of the game after that, as already explained.

The enemy troops will move into the battlefield circle and try to hold it for 90 days, which will cause them to win the territory if they are allowed to hold the battlefield for that long. But if you are unable to fight the baron's army with your current troops and all available mercenaries, you might still want to force the baron to wait for 90 days on the battlefield for your army that never comes, because it gives you an extra 3 months. Three months, and during those months the baron cannot claim another region. His army will stand around idly or might even move to intercept incoming raiders if those appear during this time, and you can use those 3 months to develop your economy and build up your military strength, or possibly a defensive manor.

If you want to engage in battle and win that region, though, you might want to assemble all your hired mercenaries, your available militia and retinue together, and once formed up, march your army to meet the baron's mercenaries on the battlefield. Read the next section to find out how that works!

1. How to start a fight:



When your troops meet the baron's mercenaries on the designated battlefield marked by the giant yellow circle, this message "The Battle Begins!" will appear in the middle of the screen, accompanied by a chorus of cheering soldiers' voices.

IMPORTANT!: If you fail to trigger the start of the battle this way, the battle timer countdown from 90 days to 0 will simply continue, even after you've defeated all enemy troops, and towards the lower half of that countdown the baron will spawn a complete fresh second army, identical to the first one, to try to take the battlefield again!

So, even if you don't intend to fight on the battlefield, because you'd rather station your troops on a hill, and your battlefield is on a downward slope that favours the baron's direction of approach, or on a plain that gives no terrain advantages to anyone, you should try to move at least a baiting military unit to the battlefield circle to trigger the "Battle Begins" and lure the enemy troops towards your defensive position. Also, before you defeat the last remaining enemy unit (usually his archers), you'll want to have at least one of your units stationed inside the battlefield circle, so the battle condition is set to "winning" instead of "losing", because you'll only win the battle if your units are the last ones inside the battlefield circle once the enemy is defeated.

HINT!: You can also use manors as forts to win such battles! The battlefield circle will always spawn in the exact same location for each region. Once you have identified where that is, you can build a fortified manor there and await the baron's troops inside it the next time you make a claim.

To claim a region, you currently need influence points. You increase your influence points by winning fights - against bandits, raiding brigands or the baron's army - or by setting a monthly tithe in your manor. This will take a percentage of your food supply as tribute to the church and give you influence points in exchange.

Once you have accumulated 1000 influence points, you have enough influence to claim one neutral region. If you zoom out to the political map, you can see that your owned regions are marked red, the baron's regions are marked yellow, and the neutral regions are grey.

Claiming a neutral region usually goes smoothly without a fuzz. You click on the region in the political map view, a new option at the bottom of the map screen will appear saying "Claim with influence", and you click on it. After a timer has run out and the "territorial claim" progress bar has filled, you get notified that you have successfully claimed that region

To claim the baron's regions, you need 2000 influence points for each territory. In later builds of the game, supposedly there will also be ways to gain the king's favour and use it to claim other regions as well, but this is not yet implemented as of build number 0.8004 in Early Access.

If you are short on influence points, but still want to fight the baron, you can simply wait until he claims a neutral region and click on the button to "contest that claim". This will result in a declaration of war:



You can then find out where the battlefield will be and move your troops there. Ideally, however, you should start such an endeavour by rallying and assembling your troops before you contest or press any claim, and already have them moved towards the intended territory. As always: Don't forget about the mercenaries, if they are still available. They'll either fight for you or him. For you is usually better.

2. How to win against the baron:

The easiest way to win against the baron is usually to claim all of his last remaining regions at once, like this:



Here, I am laying claim to both Selbitz and Hofstetten, the baron's starting regions on every "Restoring the peace" scenario on the "early_access_map". This means I will have to split my forces to enter two battlefields at the same time:



The battlefield for Hofstetten - I sent a couple of retinues there....



... and the battlefield of Selbitz, which I claimed first and where I assemble the majority of my army. As you can probably see on the screenshots, the baron approaches Selbitz first with his usual expeditionary force of 162 men in 5 units, while not sending any army yet to defend Hofstetten.

With my overwhelming numbers, this small mercenary army is easily defeated, and Selbitz is mine. After that, I move my army towards the second battlefield for Hofstetten, where a couple of my retinues are already waiting and occupying it. The baron needs a little time to recover from the shock of losing one of his armies, but sends in the rest of his troops at the end:



1 retinue (36 men in medium armour, which means chainmail and helmets), 2 units of footmen (72 men in light armour, which means gambesons and helmets), 2 units of spearmen (72 men in light armour) and 2 units of archers (72 men in light armour): 242 men

Also not really a match for endgame army, so they are easily obliterated, and victory is mine. So you do not even have to face the full might of the baron's last stand all at once, you just need enough influence points to claim two regions at the same time. Which, by the end of the game, you should easily have accumulated.

And thus ends the reign of Hildebolt von Berenreute, last of his name.... and you'll be rewarded with some beauty shots of your army and villages before seeing the victory screen:







To recap some of this content, feel free to watch this video: