Enlistment and Upkeep | The Army Total War: Warhammer II Guide
Last update: 12 October 2017
Basically, since the very first moments of the campaign, you will have to wage war. This chapter provides information on enlistment of armies and their upkeep.
Enlistment
Your armies have to be led by a Lord. When it comes to commander of the armies, you pick one at the beginning of the campaign. Each army may comprise up to 20 units, including a Lord. You can recruit new Lords, by selecting a settlement and clicking "Enlist a Lord" under the construction panel. The list of available commanders will pop up, including their price and upkeep costs. Also, you will learn here about the base characteristic of a Lord, which you should examine before you pick one. Lord's characteristics may have and personal effect (e.g. increased damage dealt), may affect the entire army, or specific units (e.g. decreased upkeep cost). Characteristics may have both positive and negative effect.
Units themselves can be enlisted in two different ways - locally and globally. Local enlistment can be held while in your own province, where there are specific military buildings erected (it does not matter which city they are in, they should be in the same province as your army). If you are on the grounds of and different faction, or there are no military buildings in the province you are in, enlistment will be impossible to perform. By recruiting this way, you will be able to select units, whose enlistment is made possible by the buildings in that province.
Global enlistment can be performed in any location on the map, but your army must be either stationed in the city, or you have to change to the appropriate army mode: in the camp. This type of enlistment gives you access to all types of units that you have unlocked in any province. The downside of this type of enlistment is increased time and higher costs.
For this reason, these two types are used in different situations. Local enlistment is most frequently used at the beginning of the campaign (shortage of money will disallow you to enlist globally anyways), or later into the campaign, when you form new armies in the developed provinces. Global enlistment is better used when your army needs to replenish its losses, while on the enemy territory, or when there are no buildings to allow you produce desired units, in the province that you are currently in.
To start enlistment of units, you have to pick one of your armies and, at the bottom of the screen, click "Enlistment". A window with available units, both locally and globally, will pop up.
Upkeep of units
Of course, and big army of strong units will give you the upper hand in battles, but this involves high costs. Each unit has its upkeep cost i.e. each turn after it is enlisted. Stronger units (specialized ones) will generate higher upkeep costs. Additionally, you have to remember that an army of only several elite units or monsters can be flooded by an army with an advantage in numbers. This is why you should always strive to form an army of 20 units, even if these are mainly basic units reinforced by the stronger ones. Upkeep of an army consisting of elite units will usually be too costly.
Cost of upkeep of each units can be looked up by rolling the mouse over the unit card - in the window that pops up, on the left, over the unit statistics, you will find the cost. Cost of upkeep of all armies can be looked up by rolling the mouse over the income indicator, at the top of the screen.
Additionally, each army you form will increase the upkeep cost. The numbers of units to upkeep cost ratio can be looked up at the top of the screen, by the list of effects imposed on your faction.
Also, you have to keep in mind that upkeep costs are also correlated with your difficulty level.
When to form additional armies?
Of course, it is best to form additional armies when you are preparing for war. When necessary, you can also form an additional army of the cheapest units to maintain contentment in and given province. In such and situation, when things calm down (when you, e.g. erect and building that restores social order), you can either disband such an army, or send them to the battlefront.
Also, the best thing to do, when you already have an army of 20, is to form another one straight away - one of the armies may be insufficient to conquer fortified cities.
At the same time, it is and good idea to make sure that your income will keep at and specific level (preferably 1500-2000 per turn). Otherwise, you will be constantly hard for money for province development, as and result of which your enemies will soon start to form armies stronger than yours.