Troops

Four groups of troops

• Infantry from the Barracks: Light infantry, Swordsmen, Axemen, Archers and – in castles with a sanctuary – Templar. Cheap, quick to train and happy with few settlers.
• Mounted troops from the Stables: Spies, Cavalry, Armored cavalry and – in special castles – Paladin. Fast and strong, but more expensive and hungry for settlers.
• Siege weapons from the Catapult workshop: Battering rams break the wall, Catapults bombard buildings. Slow and expensive, but essential for conquest.
• Special units: You unlock the Amber Knight in the Athanor and pay for it with amber. You buy Senators in the Senate to take over other castles.

Where and how troops are recruited

Every castle recruits for itself, in the building that the unit belongs to. All troop types train in parallel, each in its own queue. The higher the recruiting building, the faster your troops are ready and the more fit into a queue. Resources and settlers are due as soon as you place the order. Everything else is explained under Recruiting.

Settlers: often the scarcest resource

Every unit takes up settlers from your Living quarters – most infantry just one, heavy cavalry and siege weapons considerably more. Once resources stop being a problem, your free settlers decide how big your army can grow. The column “Settlers per unit” in the comparison below shows how much room each troop needs (see Settlers).

Research and marching speed

The Laboratory researches three stages of Weapon research for every troop type; Special research then strengthens all troops of a castle at once. Both only apply to the castle where you research them.

An army always marches at the pace of its slowest unit. Spies and Paladins are the fastest, rams and catapults the slowest – a single ram makes a cavalry attack as sluggish as a siege train. So keep fast plunder raids apart from slow sieges. The Military training grounds decides how many troops of a castle can be away at the same time; the Tournament field shortens long marches (see Marching times).