Your party is the one of the most important aspects of the game; within it you can hire troops (from villages) and secondary Companions who will help you in battle. Companions are important because they cannot die in battle (they just get wounded). There are twenty companions in the game you can hire from taverns. It is important to level up your Persuasion so you can handle inner party disputes, as not all companions will like each other.
Morale
Morale influences your moving speed and when it becomes low your troops will start deserting. You can increase your morale by winning battles, tournaments, having a variety of food, completing quests, razing villages and raising your leadership skill. You can lose morale from starvation, losing battles, and failing quests (the last one is actually true for many NPC heroes). Morale of nation-based troops is also greatly negatively affected if you are waging a war against their home nation. Also, fighting more than 1 or 2 times a day will lower morale.
Morale Modifiers
- Base morale: your base morale will always be 50.
- Party size: the more troops you have in your party, the higher the morale penalty will be. Note that when removing party members, this penalty will decrease by 1 each, but a temporary 1 point penalty will be incurred to Recent Events. This means you are left with no immediate net change.
- Leadership: morale bonus provided by your Leadership skill.
- Food variety: quite self-explanatory, every type of food has a morale bonus in its description.
- Recent events: any events like winning tournaments, battles, or completings quests will give you a large morale bonus.
Size
The party size represents of course how many troops you can take with you. Party size is affected by your renown, charisma, and leadership skill.
Size Modifiers
The player's maximum party size is calculated differently than NPCs:
| Modifier | Bonus Size |
|---|---|
| Base size | 10 |
| Leadership | 10 |
| Renown | 1/25 |
| Charisma | 2 |
NPC lords receive the following bonuses. Other randomly generated AI parties, such as bandits, are selected from a specific range:
| Modifier | Bonus Size |
|---|---|
| Base size | 10 |
| Leadership | 5 |
| Renown | 1/25 |
| King | 100 |
| Marshal | 20 |
| Castles | 20 |
Lords and Monarchs may exceed their maximum size (upon defeating an enemy with plenty of prisoners), however they will periodically drop troops until they no longer exceed their limit. Unique Spawns, Generic Armies, Mercenary Companies, Village patrols and Caravans have no limit, and therefore, will not lose troops if they get too big.
Wages
Wages will be paid to your troops every 168 hours, which is seven days. If you don't have enough money to pay your troops' wages, your party will lose morale and you will incur a debt. Wages are primarily based upon your troops' level, but then several other calculations are performed before reaching the final amount.
Debt will be the first thing to be paid on the next weekly budget, if you can't pay it, it will remain there + the new wages, and again morale will drop. This will continue to happen until you can pay your debt+wages on any week.