You won't have any standing armies in Total War: Medieval 3 at first, so better get chummy with the commoners

Creative Assembly detail the new strategy game's regional levies system

Yesterday, Julian wrote about the possibility of changing inheritance laws in Total War: Medieval 3, and thereby revealed to me that Creative Assembly have been sneakily talking in depth about the forthcoming strategy game on their forums. The audacity of those people! In other posts, we learn about their plans for standing armies, which I think are probably what interests me most about TwarMed3, in that each campaign will be an exercise in getting to the point where standing armies are a thing.

Initially, you won't field any professional units of soldiers. Instead, you'll levy troops from the common folk of each region. "Our intention and the current functionality is that there are no 'standing' (or permanent) armies early on in the game," Medieval 3's creative director Leif Walter observes in a post from a few weeks back. "You muster your armies once war breaks out, and once peace is made, these armies are disbanded again and the men return to their fields.

"Later on in the campaign, you will then start to be able to field permanent and standing (professional) armies," he continues. "This is where the game will feel more like 'classic' Total War. This transition will be gradual, and in the 14th century (-ish), both aspects will be equally important (and how fast - or if at all - you make this transition is part of your strategy and part of what kind of realm you are building)."

Among the wrinkles here is that when you muster your levies in the earlygame, you'll also deprive the regional economy of a workforce. The stinky cow jugglers and turnip herders of the realm may also be less inclined to muster, if your legitimacy as ruler is low. This isn't a problem with later professional soldiers: instead, you'll just have to worry about upkeep costs, as in other Total Warblers.

The juiciest layer, perhaps, is that the kind and quality of your levies will depend on how you cultivate the region those troops hail from. "You can customize these retinues of course, based on your local infrastructure," Walter continues. "If you want to develop a region into an elite cavalry retinue, you want to upgrade your stables and import strategic War Horses into that region, for example.

"We are also investigating (this part is less fleshed out yet) a trait-based 'traditions' system where these regional retinues would earn traits over time, representing local military traditions," he adds. "The goal here is to give these regional retinues a strong identity and a clear character. As part of this, we also want to make sure we represent regional heraldry. When you look over your army in battle, we want you to be able to clearly identify your regional troops from various parts of your realm."

There are precedents for all this in older Total War games. In particular, the division of armies into retinues of units led by named characters in Total War: Three Kingdoms. Medieval 3 features regional lords, each of which is the default leader of retinues drawn from that region, but retinues can move around independently of the local lord, and are fundamentally tied to regions, not rulers. So where you're from appears to be slightly more important than which bigwig you fight for.

"The size of these regional retinues is currently being debated, and we would love to give players more freedom than in previous games," Walter adds. "So instead of assuming that every region would field 6 units akin to previous games, your composition may be much more asymmetric. Perhaps Sussex and Norfolk are heavily militarized regions and field sizable banners of 8 units, whereas Cornwall and Essex only field 2 units each."

The post has been edited to include a few clarifications and additions, responding to comments. Firstly, Creative Assembly want more than 20 units per army, but are concerned about battles becoming a chore if each side is a 40-strong doomstack. "In fact, I really liked how in the older games you actually started with smaller armies, where every unit mattered, and then progressed to full stacks over time," Walter writes. "Overall, I would say that for now, we are aiming for a classic number of units per army; but with some added freedom for players if they really want to."

Secondly, they're looking at bringing back the Man of the Hour system, featured in Total War: Medieval 2. "This is definitely something we are having in our plans as a cool narrative event and as a way to generate a new character within your realm," Walter writes. "How cool would it be if a hero emerges in one of your battles, they become a new character, you grant them land and they become one of the great vassals of your realm. And then, two generations later, the descendants of that hero start a civil war to take control of the crown…"

As you've hopefully deciphered, the 'levies > standing army' transition forms part of the game's overall aim at recreating a certain set of historical narratives. To whit, "the military progression from the classic crusader generation of knight (armour, but also tactics) towards the late medieval plate armour (Hundred Years' War) to the first appearance of gunpowder"; "the economic evolution of the medieval world with an increase in urbanization in the later centuries"; and "thematic change throughout the later medieval period from a focus on religious conflicts, to larger realm (and almost state-) level conflicts, and of course challenges like the plague, or foreign invasions." Read more about that in this older blog post from Walter.

Personally, I never want to get to the point where all of my units are full-time soldiers. I really like the idea of always being beholden to my regions - each with their boisterous local lordlings, distinctive pennants and martial traditions honed over decades - whenever I want to kick sand in the Holy Roman Emperor's face.

As with a lot of Total War stuff, my enthusiasm for these things is soured by the Total Worry that none of this is all that new, because Total War is a 25-year-old series with 16 major instalments to date, and enough DLC to give even Paradox conniptions. I'm sure I've missed a vital precedent, and that you - yes, you - are about to leave a comment along the lines of "Ah, so exactly like how they did it in the 23rd Total War: Warhammer add-on Mecha Munchkins of Drillsville, you prancing ignoramus." Go on, it's the only way I'll learn.