Unit Hiring

Unit Hiring is a gameplay mechanic that allows you to hire your own armies and have them follow you around and fight for you! Almost all of the fighting NPCs in the mod can be hired in exchange for various sums of silver coins, but which units you can hire depends on your alignment.

Unit Traders In order to get started with hiring an army, you must collect some silver coins and then find one of the various Unit Trader NPCs in the mod. There are unit traders for both the good and evil side, including:

Good: Gondorian Captains, found in Gondor Fortresses Galadhrim Lords, found in Grand Elven Treehouses Dwarf Commanders, found in Dwarven Towers Hobbit Shirriff Chiefs, found in Hobbit Taverns High Elven Lords, found in High Elven Halls Wood-elf Captains, found in Wood-elven Towers Ranger Captains, found in Ranger Camps Rohirrim Marshals, found in Rohan Fortresses

Evil: Orc Mercenary Captains, found in Mordor Towers Uruk-hai Mercenary Captains, found in Uruk Camps Angmar Mercenary Captains, found in Angmar Towers Dunlending Warlords, found in Dunlending Hill Fort Gundabad Orc Mercenary Captains, found in Gundabad Camps

Each trader type has a certain alignment level that you must reach before you can hire units from them. Otherwise, when spoken to they will inform you that you need to gain more reputation, do more evil deeds, prove your trustworthiness, or something to that effect. For example, to hire from a Gondorian Captain you must have at least 100 alignment.

The Hiring Screen Once you have reached the required alignment level to hire from your trader, right-click them while holding silver coins and a screen similar to this will be opened:

Displayed at the top of the screen is the name of the trader. In the bar below is the name of the selected unit, accompanied by an example of that unit in the box to the left.

The number in the circle is the unit's price in silver coins, and the number next to the ring is the alignment level required to hire the unit. Use the two arrow buttons to move through the list of hired units.

If you have the required amount of coins and alignment level, you can click the sword button to hire the unit! The hired unit will be spawned into the world at your player's position, with a 'Hired' tag above its head and a health bar.

In the upcoming Canada Day update, the price of hired units will be related to your alignment with the faction. For example, a Rohirric Warrior starts out as costing 15 coins, but as you gain Rohan alignment, the price of the Rohan Warrior will decrease.

Hired Units: What they do, and how to command them Hired units will follow you within their normal navigation range, and they will never despawn. They will attack any nearby enemies or players. They also attack anything that attacks you or is attacked by you, provided that 1) the unit is not already in combat and 2) the mob or player fighting you is not on the same alignment side as the unit. To gain more control over your hired units you can right-click on them, and then click on the command button. This will bring up a screen allowing you to turn on or off various features such as guard mode and auto-teleport. Hired units can never be made to attack any NPCs or players allied with them. To make a hired unit attack a mob (passive creatures, hostile creatures, or mobs from Vanilla) without it attacking your, or you fighting it, right click on it with a Sword of Command.

You cannot directly hurt your own hired units (including any thrown projectiles; these will bounce off without causing damage) and the units will automatically heal over time when not in combat. There is currently no limit to the amount of units you can hire. If a unit you have hired dies or is killed, you will be notified via a message in the #|chat bar.

To gain more control over the hired units, you can use a Horn of Command and a Sword of Command. These horns are crafted out of three bronze ingots. When you first craft a horn it will have no special properties, but you can right-click while holding the horn to open up a screen and choose what you want it to do. You can choose between a Halt/Foward Horn of Command and a Summon Horn of Command. The horn can then be blown by holding down the right mouse button for approximately two seconds.

The Halt/Foward horn has two modes. It starts as a Halt horn, and every time it is blown it switches to the alternate mode. When the Halt horn is blown all your hired units will immediately stand still and stop fighting. Units who have been halted will not seek out targets to attack and will not move at all unless pushed. However, if a halted unit is attacked it will fight back on its own. When the Forward horn is blown the units return to their original state.

Note that all units are originally able to move when hired. So if you have a group of halted units and you hire another one, you will need to blow the horn once to release the units and switch it back into Halt mode, and blow it again to halt all the units.

The Summon horn, when blown, teleports all units to your position (as long as they can fit there - if you blow the horn in a small hole, the units probably won't teleport). This horn will of course only summon units in loaded chunks, because units in unloaded chunks are not loaded into the game. With the addition of hired units automatically teleporting to you if you get too far ahead of them (similar to Wolves) the Summon Horn is no longer needed when travelling with units, but it can still be a useful accessory when fighting.

The Sword of Command is used to attack your foes manually. In order to do this, wield the sword and right-click on the unit you want to have slain (this can also be an animal). However, units will never attack an NPC you have a positive alignment with (Galadrim Elves will never attack Dwarves, even if you tell them to).