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Retainers
August 17, 2026 at 03:48 PM
Added the announced unique hero traits table, the intelligence screen, and the teaching of skills and philosophies
Retainers are recruitable named characters in Huaxia: Warring States. The Early Access roster numbers around eighty figures, drawn from the historical and legendary record of the late Warring States era. Retainers function as combat companions on the personal layer, as named generals and advisors on the strategic layer, and as marriage partners and household members in the long-term clan loop.
The named retainers borrow heavily from real historical figures, but their stats, personalities, recruitment requirements, and storylines are creative interpretations. The game folds in mythological elements, alternate-history what-ifs, and fictional framings that do not map cleanly onto the historical record. Treat retainer pages as in-world characters with shared names rather than as biographies.
Most retainers will not join you on first meeting. They have their own goals, allegiances, and conditions that you must satisfy. The game offers several social verbs to move recruitment forward.
Verb | Effect |
|---|---|
Study with | Approach a learned candidate as a student; raises affinity through shared learning |
Gift | Offer money, goods, weapons, or rare items aligned with the candidate's interests |
Persuade | Use eloquence checks to argue for your cause; gated by traits and schooling |
Bribe | Direct payment for compliance; lowers ethical-school standing if witnessed |
Role | Where It Matters |
|---|---|
Combat companion | Stands beside you in personal melee; covers ranged, defensive, or technical roles you have not specced into |
Field general | Leads detachments on the strategic layer; their stats determine pre-battle bonuses, retreat penalties, and unique tactical orders |
Advisor | Provides counsel in homestead, county, and clan management; sometimes unlocks unique policies |
Diplomat | Conducts diplomacy with rival factions; eloquent retainers are decisive in alliance negotiations |
Partner | Marriage and children are part of the long-term clan loop, and some retainers are eligible marriage partners who become part of the household over the long term |
Many retainers are aligned with one or more schools of thought. A Confucian-leaning retainer values rite, hierarchy, and study; a Mohist retainer values frugality, defensive war, and craft. Aligning your own school choices with your retainer's preferences increases their affinity and unlocks unique events. Recruiting a retainer aligned with a school you oppose is possible but slower and requires sustained social investment.
On the personal layer, pair retainers whose elemental and trigram affinities cover gaps in yours. A water-element melee retainer balances a fire-element character; a yin-leaning patient retainer balances a yang-leaning aggressive one. The same applies on the strategic layer: cavalry-specialist retainers excel in open terrain, defensive-specialist retainers excel in siege defense.
Retainers can be lost in battle, can leave you over conflicting choices, or can die in story events. Several have permanent or semi-permanent loss triggers; once they are gone, they are gone. Save before high-risk story decisions involving named retainers if you want to avoid an irreversible parting.
The retainer list grows and shifts between updates: existing retainers get rebalanced; new ones are introduced; rare ones are sometimes restructured. Articles for individual retainers will be created as their roles stabilize. Until then, the canonical roster lives in-game on the recruitment screen.
A balance pass during Early Access raised the starting skill level of the historical heroes so that every state has access to characters with high-tier (level 5) skills, making recruited martial arts talent more even across factions than it was at launch. Hero supplies are also drawn from your treasury on a fixed cadence alongside soldier pay, so a large retinue carries an ongoing upkeep cost.
Party management was refined in the June 5 update. When you remove a retainer from your party, they now return to their clan's homestead rather than reappearing in Yiyang or wandering the open world, which makes it easier to find and re-recruit them later. Recruiting prisoners as retainers now correctly updates their profession on joining. The developer has also named a planned feature that will let you teach new concepts to recruited retainers, deepening how much you can shape a companion after recruitment.
A July 2026 update let retainers draw on the clan's new Collection Library. Books and recipes learned by any member are stored to the shared library and can be used across the clan rather than only by the protagonist. A dedicated system for teaching school philosophy directly to retainers was named as a later addition and is not yet in the build.
The July 18, 2026 update roadmap set a dedicated retainer-development phase for the July to August 2026 window. Its headline additions are retainer dispatch, which sends clan retainers out on their own to travel, trade, and run missions, and a training path that branches retainers into civil and martial specialists for tailored squad builds, plus a side-by-side equipment comparison screen. These remain announced rather than shipped, so treat them as roadmap intent until a patch confirms them. See Early Access Roadmap for the full dated schedule.
On July 31, 2026 the studio previewed what that phase will contain. A retainer cultivation system will combine philosophies, equipment, and talents so a retainer can be pushed toward a specific military role or weapon proficiency instead of levelling as a generalist. Alongside it, players will be able to teach skills and philosophies to clan members, rename them, and hand out rewards for good service. The stated target is to ship the batch before September; until a patch confirms it, treat the whole set as announced rather than in the build.
On August 8, 2026 the studio set out how it intends to separate renowned historical figures from the generic characters that fill out a roster. Each named hero gains one or more unique traits of their own rather than drawing from a shared pool. The examples below were published with the announcement and reached an opt-in test branch on August 14, so treat them as announced values that a main-build patch still has to confirm, and expect the numbers to move.
Hero | Trait | Effect |
|---|---|---|
Meng Ao | Meng Clan Family Precepts | Other Meng clan members in the same clan gain Ancestral Blessing: all attributes up 3 percent and experience gain up 20 percent. |
Han Fei | Treatise on the Five Vermin | Every clan member draws 12 percent less salary and works 12 percent more efficiently. |
Zhang Liang | Five-Generation Minister of Han | The party gains 30 percent more reputation with the state of Han, and Han unit upgrades cost 20 percent less gold. |
Gai Nie | Tai-A Pacifies Qin | While the sword Tai-A is equipped, melee damage rises 12 percent and critical hit chance rises 10 percent. See Weapons. |
Wei Wuji | Three Thousand Retainers | With three or more retainers in the party, the whole group gains 20 percent more skill experience and 20 percent more favour. |
The studio said further traits will arrive in later patches, and that it will avoid heavy balance reworks at this stage unless a value proves badly out of line. Alongside the traits, an intelligence screen is planned so a player can browse a figure's abilities before deciding who is worth pursuing, which removes some of the guesswork from the recruitment loop described above.
Book recipes unlocked by any clan member are already shared across the whole clan. The August 2026 revision extends that to teaching: philosophies and skills can be passed directly to retainers and clansmen, characters can be renamed, and rewards can be handed out to individuals. Combined with traits, equipment, and talents, this is what lets a retainer be pushed toward a specific troop proficiency or a specific civil office rather than staying a generalist. See Talents and Skills for the eighteen arts a character can be taught, and Hundred Schools of Thought for the philosophy side.
An August 8 fix addressed a related problem: captives recruited as retainers were failing to join the party immediately, leaving them impossible to find afterwards.
See also: Combat System, Hundred Schools of Thought, Character Creation, Factions.
