This drove me crazy to no end. Retinue in Manor Lords are essentially your private guard. They aren’t citizens like your militia, their only existence is protecting your kingdom. You don’t have to pay them monthly like mercenaries, and they don’t take away from your labor. However, recruiting them is a bit cumbersome.
This is mainly a labeling issue, though there are other considerations you need to keep in mind.
How to gain a retinue
In order to actually get a retinue in Manor Lords, you first need to build a manor. This can be done once you meet the Small Village stage, which is the first stage following Settlers Camp and will be achieved by creating burgages for your initial population (though some of the materials will require a bit more work).
Once the manor is constructed, you immediately get a force of retinue. It’s a decent-sized force, but in my first game, mine was completely wiped out in a bandit attack. I then had difficulty figuring out how to actually fill those boots again.
How to recruit retinue
Regardless of whether or not you need to replace fallen retinue or built a garrison tower and can recruit more, this is how you add more soldiers.
As noted above, you need to have built a manor. Once you have, the retinue unit will be added to the military tab on your taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Initially, it will be full (12 units), and you don’t have to worry about adding more unless some of them die or you build the aforementioned garrison tower.
Once that happens, things get confusing. When you mouse over the retinue unit in the military tab, it will tell you “Recruits Missing,” which doesn’t really mean anything. Otherwise, there doesn’t seem to be any other option. You might expect that more would be added automatically as you gain citizens, but no.
You actually have to select the unit, then click on “Retinue Customization” above it. This will open a window. On the left-hand side of the screen, there is a button for “recruit men-at-arms.” Choosing this will allow you to hire a new soldier using money from your treasury. Note that this isn’t regional wealth, you get treasury funds through taxes.
There is another option there which is “recruit ministerialis.” However, this is locked during Early Access, so your only option for adding troops to your retinue is to pay to recruit men-at-arms. Also note that in order to actually field your retinue, there needs to be at least five soldiers in the unit.
Within the Retinue Customization menu, you can also pay to improve a soldier’s armor, rename them, and change what their gear looks like.
