Unlock the power of elite soldiers in Manor Lords by building your first Manor – the gateway to recruiting your personal Retinue. These professional warriors, stronger and more customizable than your militia, are essential for defending your lands and conquering enemies. Ready to learn how to raise, expand, and outfit your Retinue to dominate the battlefield? Here’s your essential guide to assembling a loyal and formidable fighting force in Manor Lords.
Retinue essentially means retainer, which is exactly what these soldiers are. While your army is full of men from your village who usually have standard jobs and only become fighters when combat is nigh, members of your retinue have fighting as their sole purpose.
Here’s the lowdown on how to get retinue in Manor Lords and how to increase retinue size. We’ll also explain why retinue recruits are missing.
How to get retinue in Manor Lords
To get a retinue in Manor Lords, you first need to reach the Small Village settlement level and build a Manor, which requires resources like timber, planks, and stone. Once the Manor is constructed, you automatically receive five retinue soldiers, who are elite fighters with better armor and weapons than militia or mercenaries. To recruit additional retinue units, open the Army menu, select the Retinue unit, and use the Retinue Customization option to recruit more men-at-arms for a cost of 50 treasury units each. You can expand your retinue limit by building a Garrison Tower through the Castle Planner, which adds capacity for 12 more soldiers per tower, but only one tower can be built per region. Retinues are highly effective and customizable professional soldiers essential for defending and expanding your settlement.
Firstly, let’s tackle how you get your hands on retinue soldiers in the first place. To do this, you must have a Manor in your settlement.
Constructing a Manor will grant five soldiers into your retinue automatically, who will deploy themselves when combat is about to begin. Because they’re stronger than your usual soldiers, we recommended that you lead the charge with them with the rest of your standard fighters behind.
How to increase retinue size in Manor Lords
To increase your retinue size in Manor Lords, start by building a Manor in your settlement, which unlocks the retinue with an initial five soldiers and a maximum capacity of 12. You can recruit additional soldiers through the Retinue Customization menu found in the Army tab, each costing 50 gold from your personal Treasury. To further expand your retinue beyond 12 soldiers, construct a Garrison Tower, which increases the maximum retinue size by 12 more, bringing the total to 24 soldiers. Note that only one Garrison Tower can be built per region. Additionally, conquering new regions and building Manors there allows you to have separate retinues in different locations, effectively increasing your overall military strength.
To increase the size of your retinue, you must click on the army option along the bottom, between construction and map. Your retinue will be listed here and selecting them gives you the option to rally, which can only be done during combat, or customize, which is where you need to go to increase the size.
In retinue customization, you can spend money from your treasury on hiring more retainers. It costs 50 gold to recruit a man-at-arms, and while there’s an option to promote one of your citizens to retinue, it’s currently grayed-out in early access.
This is also where you can upgrade your retinue, by improving the armor of each individual soldier. You can import a full suit of armor for 34 gold, or if you have an armorer in your settlement, for 17 gold.
You can recruit up to 12 soldiers this way by paying 50 gold at a time, but if you have a Garrison Tower attached to your manor, it’ll allow for another 12. You can place one Garrison Tower per region you control, which means you can only have a maximum of 24 retinue soldiers before you must expand your control of the land.
How to fix recruits missing in retinue
To fix the “Recruits Missing” message in Manor Lords, you need to increase your settlement’s population by raising more families, ensuring you have enough space in Burgage Plots and an approval rating above 50%, which encourages new families to join monthly. If the message persists, you can manually rehire or recruit retinue soldiers by opening the Army tab, selecting the Retinue, clicking the customization brush icon, and then using the “Recruit Men-At-Arms” button to hire new soldiers for 50 Treasury each. Sometimes, saving and reloading the game helps clear the message due to early access bugs. This process ensures your retinue is replenished and ready for battle.
If you’re running into a pop-up that says you have recruits missing, all that’s happened is that your soldiers have been killed. This happens with your normal army (the fix for which is to simply have more families move in, something that happens automatically when your approval rate is high enough) but with your retinue, the fix is simply to go back into the customization screen and rehire the missing soldiers.
How can building a Garrison Tower expand my retinue in Manor Lords
Building a Garrison Tower in Manor Lords expands your Retinue by increasing the maximum number of soldiers you can have from 12 to 24. This defensive structure, available through the Castle Planner menu, costs ten Timber, 15 Planks, and ten Stones to construct. However, you can build only one Garrison Tower per region, capping your Retinue size at 24 soldiers in that area. To further expand your military presence, you would need to establish Manors in additional regions.
How does building a Garrison Tower specifically increase my retinue limit to 24
Building a Garrison Tower in Manor Lords specifically increases your retinue limit by adding 12 more soldiers to the initial maximum of 12, thus raising the total retinue size to 24. This is achieved because the Garrison Tower, which costs ten Timber, 15 Planks, and ten Stones to construct and is available through the Castle Planner menu, functions as an upgrade to your Manor’s military capacity. However, you can only build one Garrison Tower per region, which means this increase is capped at 24 soldiers per region unless you expand to other regions and build additional Manors and towers there.
