A Strategic Dilemma

I am a vassal of the D'Shar, i have Hrolfson Castle (founded Ebony Gauntlet chapter) and Gunders Lodge (created my CKO). Two good castles next to each other connecting the D'Shar and Fierdsvain lands.

Sarleon is the strongest at the moment, they were fighting vs all the factions at some point but they only lost a few castles and traded Sarleon for Ethos with the Empire. If you are wondering how they lost only a few fiefs, Ulric has employed the Syla Urzas and they have 2k troops at the moment wrecking havoc all over the map.

The Fierds have been reduced to Valonbray, Javiksholm and 2 castles, Empire and Ravenstern have lost a few fiefs each. The D'Shar recovered from the early wars with the Empire/Ravenstern and have expanded towards the Fierds area.

I am waiting patiently to become the Marshal and i am thinking of the following options:

1) Instigate a war with the Fierdsvain and siege Valonbray, ask to get the fief rewarded and when i get refused rebel. I will give it to Ronald more due to Lore since there is a chapter of  Knights of the Dawn there.

The advantages are that there will be 2 castles close to Valonbray and will be easy to reinforce it or defend it in siegies. There will also be patrols in the area from 3 KO (Order of the Dawn, Ebony Gauntlet and my CKO) who can provide safety for the villagers and help my Kingdom in general. The are is also a huge Vanskerrie Army (1.8k troops) which can push away enemy Marshal forces.

2) Wait for D'Shar to declare a war on anyone and send everyone on suicide missions to severely weaken them. It would be ideal if they lose Nal Tar or Singal so i can retake them and rebel after being refused.

Nal Tar looks like a very safe place, there is only 1 entry point for an enemy Marshal force and no unique spawns. Singal is easy to defend, i have done it before and with Ranun there a lot of denars will be earned. With the Fierds being weak they only realistic threats in that area would be the D'Shar, Sarleon and maybe the Empire. I have also 9 Persuasion and i am friends with most of the D'Shar Lords so i can slowly convert them.

Leslie also has 30 CHA and will soon max out persuasion so i will most likely be able to make peace with anyone i don't want to fight.

What do you think would be the best option?

Haha, due to lore, Ronald should open a McDonalds...
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RP-wise I like the 1st option (because I don't like abusing relations/betraying and send lords on suicide missions).

Strategy-wise you have already made some good pts, the order patrols in that area are good. I urge you to be careful with the Vanskerry Army though, since they're not THAT strong, and if they rack up prisoners and get beaten by a sieging stack... -.-
Better to take the army out yourself, as soon as the prisoner number rises.
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Persuasion is good and all, what about RTR? And remember, often enough it takes days for getting an answer, in which time chances are a sieging stack will knock on your door.

Valonbray is VERY bad to defend (just did that recently), Nal Tar is the much better deal. The rest depends on whether you belief there will be a need to defend it.
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Best sure-fire strategy I suggest: Instigate war with ALL other factions, then take 1 town (either with some friendly lords or re-take one)...once you rebel, your ex-faction will be occupied with fighting off the other factions.

Warning: That said, just be sure you can rebel, and not get rewarded for real. Also, if your home faction is winning the war, then they'll push for peace fast just so they can 2-3k deathstack your new precious.

Ensure you´ve got awesome relations with the surrounding villages, as many as possible, and few lords as well and a wife.
That way declaring yourself independent will be a lot easier. Some Right to Rule may be of great assistance as well.

Go war the green Horde, defeat their lords and release them to gain good relationswith them, same as with your fellow D´Shar lords. Talk to them often for the relation bonus of helping each other in battle. Imprison the more annoying one and keep them under lock and key.

Siege the green cities and dwindle the garrisons but do not conquer them. Once you drained Fierdsvain sufficiently, go for the throat. Pull the hardest troops out of your castles, leave only small garrisons behind and fill up the dungeons by ordering your fellow lords there to empty out their prisoners before you send them on the other side of Pendor for fun.

So you´ve gotten 2 castles with weak garrisons but many prisoners. A huge army full of elites, a wife, good relations with your fellow lords, plenty of honor, awesome drafting grounds, a war between D´Shar and a weak Fierdsvain, and ideally, with someone else as well.

Now you leave your faction, retake your 2 castles, immediately regarrison them (keep in mind to keep the major part of the prisones in the 2nd castle, which you´ll attack with enough room in your party to suck them into service), declare on Fiersvain, take their towns and any other easy locations and - if you can - draft a few into service. Then peace them out. If they refuse, it will matter little as they won´t be able to field huge parties for long.

So you end up independent in the Javiksholm Valonbray peninsula, at war with a weak Fierdsvain and D´Shar, which, in turn, are at war with each other.

Perfect to fester and enrichen yourself.

I married Caliph Hamid's daughter Bibi (so sexy), but i used persuasion for that since Caliph was saying that another Lord is playing with her.

I took a hit in relations with him and Kadan but i made this for Role playing purposes to show them who is the true boss in Pendor

I have a google spreadsheet noting down Lord's personalities, i basically release upstanding/martial ones and capture the rest. My conversion plan will be a 3:1, that is for every 3 upstanding ones have 1 Martial one.

But yea further weakening the Fierds is best i think, in previous games i have seen them recover even when they are down to 1 city.

noosers said:

Ensure you´ve got awesome relations with the surrounding villages, as many as possible, and few lords as well and a wife.
That way declaring yourself independent will be a lot easier. Some Right to Rule may be of great assistance as well.

Go war the green Horde, defeat their lords and release them to gain good relationswith them, same as with your fellow D´Shar lords. Talk to them often for the relation bonus of helping each other in battle. Imprison the more annoying one and keep them under lock and key.

Siege the green cities and dwindle the garrisons but do not conquer them. Once you drained Fierdsvain sufficiently, go for the throat. Pull the hardest troops out of your castles, leave only small garrisons behind and fill up the dungeons by ordering your fellow lords there to empty out their prisoners before you send them on the other side of Pendor for fun.

So you´ve gotten 2 castles with weak garrisons but many prisoners. A huge army full of elites, a wife, good relations with your fellow lords, plenty of honor, awesome drafting grounds, a war between D´Shar and a weak Fierdsvain, and ideally, with someone else as well.

Now you leave your faction, retake your 2 castles, immediately regarrison them (keep in mind to keep the major part of the prisones in the 2nd castle, which you´ll attack with enough room in your party to suck them into service), declare on Fiersvain, take their towns and any other easy locations and - if you can - draft a few into service. Then peace them out. If they refuse, it will matter little as they won´t be able to field huge parties for long.

So you end up independent in the Javiksholm Valonbray peninsula, at war with a weak Fierdsvain and D´Shar, which, in turn, are at war with each other.

Perfect to fester and enrichen yourself.

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Omg...that's detailed. Are you the author of "Idiot's guide to Prophecy of Pendor"? I am ashamed of calling my method sure-fire before... T_T
And I am also ashamed that I am probably much too lazy to ever follow your instructions to detail.

I just rack up renown, elite troops, then beat the hell out of everyone....oh, hm...maybe that's why my games always seem rushed as soon as I go independent.

shoshuro said:

I married Caliph Hamid's daughter Bibi (so sexy)

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Sexy face aside (which really is hot, I agree), is it just me, or are there only 2 NPC female faces: Sexy one and really really neanderthal?

Wrong thread, but I'd really like to see some more NPC female faces (not the companion ones).

Things went better than expected, Empire declared war on the D'Shar and i captured a castle. I was also made marshal so i sent everyone to patrol around Torbah.

I got denied and i rebelled, i was then travelling around the map and saw the Empire Marshal force engaging on the D'Shar one. Empire had the numbers so i joined them and captured 6 D'Shar Lords and 5 of them through prisoner dialog decided to join me. 3 of them brought their fiefs and then i took Nal Tar.

D'Shar refused peace numerous times despite Leslie having 10 persuasion and this lead to them being reduced to 2 towns and 2 castles. Later on Sarleon was fighting vs everyone except me and they took Valonbray from the Fierds. I played dirty and declared war on then and captured Valonbray (gave it to Ronald so that he can play with his Knights of the Dawn).

At the moment my Pendor Kingdom and Sarleon are the strongest, the rest are severally weakened. I have plenty of Lords, all the them have at least 1 fief and waiting for the big war vs Sarleon to start.

Excellent strategy to join empire faction force in a battle against your enemy to grab some easy lords!

Seems like you've almost beaten the game and overcame the dilemma, have fun! 

shoshuro said:

... and captured Valonbray (gave it to Ronald so that he can play with his Knights of the Dawn).

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Now...you're saying "Ronald" on purpose, yes? Ronald of the Knights of McDonalds...
(Dammit, you made me check the list! But yes, there's no "Ronald" in PoP)

zykox said:

shoshuro said:

... and captured Valonbray (gave it to Ronald so that he can play with his Knights of the Dawn).

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Now...you're saying "Ronald" on purpose, yes? Ronald of the Knights of McDonalds...
(Dammit, you made me check the list! But yes, there's no "Ronald" in PoP)

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LOL  i confuse his name all the time so yea Sir Roland got it

LOL, didn't mean to be nitpicky. Just thought it'd be a shame to be a long-time PoP player, and get a name wrong.

The prophesy has been fulfilled and Pendor has unified under King Alexander, sovereign King of the Kingdom of Pendor embracing the culture of the old Kings.

(The victory screen must have bugged out or something, there are no invading armies left and Noldor are devoted)

Retirement:


Character:


Inventory and personal collection of the other Kings weapons:


Achievements:


Achievements (Cont):


Companions Group Photo, from left to right: Frederick, Sigismund, Riva, Leslie, Kaverra, Diev, Sara, Alyssa, Jocelyn


The final boss fight:


CKO Knight:


How to get rid of the Singalian Scums:


WTF Moment:


~ 1600 days was a bit overkill, could have finished way earlier but was fooling around and waiting to spend as many upgrades possible for CKO

Marius looks pretty badass in that armour, nice one!

Royals are the only one apart from the player to be able to found regular knighthood orders.

edit:
Don´t you hate it if after careful planning and constant war with a D´Shar down to Torbah the Fierdswine finally declare on you so one could grab a lot of juicy property the damned old Kahadur Khan simply hires Sylas Uzas and becomes invincible and a true pain in the arse and the 2k green doomstack, instead of sieging a proper castle to be slaughtered just camps outside and wants to sit it out?

*p00t* and serious fun ahead.

Now if I knew the silly buggers wouldn´t simply run, I´d spend 50k on Pendor Knights and go for the 1k Vanskerry Army to blob my 5 lords to suitable size with the 1,2k prisoners they carry.

shoshuro said:

~ 1600 days was a bit overkill, could have finished way earlier but was fooling around and waiting to spend as many upgrades possible for CKO

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so you never had the invisible lord bug during your play through. LUCKY

noosers said:

the damned old Kahadur Khan simply hires Sylas Uzas and becomes invincible and a true pain in the arse

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The Syla Uzas can turn dead weight into an unstoppable force, like they did with Sarleon in my game. King Ulric was invincible in this game, the Sylas Uzas he hired had grown to 2.4k while also having 900+ prisoners and Sarleon was getting cocky by fighting empire/fierds/ravenstern at the same time.

But i had a little surprise for him:


I was at peace with Sarleon and gathered all my lords and went deep into Ravenstern territory. Sarleon was sieging Rane, a caravan from the Fierds was passing by and the majority of Sarleon lords were attacking it. I moved in to help so i that drop relations with Sarleon to negative and then pressed leave.

Then i engaged on the Syla Uzas with my Lords, i had ~ 3.1k vs 2.7k (Syla + the remaining sarleon lords next to Rane) and after a big bloodbath, i captured their lords, Syla Uzas and afterwords my lords moved in to help the caravan capturing also the other sarleon lords.

That was it, in 1 move Sarleon Marshal force / Syla got whipped out and after ~ 100 days Sarleon was left with 1 town and 1 castle

One of your lords must have been happily bloated shortly after.

Good to see someone else's progress. Also a bit of a surprise that the total # days was greater than my longest game. Maybe my (relative) game times aren't as long as I assumed they were. I play M&B primarily as a sandbox/SIM game anyways though.

IlluminaZer0 said:

Spoiler: wat

One of your lords must have been happily bloated shortly after.

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There are 2 lords there.
142+41 and 45

Two thirds of the Fierdswine lords are currently employed as personal joculators, jugglers and pranksters. For their own safety, and that of their population. I occassionally ransom the odd one if they offer gleaming pieces of silver. Can´t sneeze at 15-19k if it pays the weeks wages.

The more as the tide has turned and with sufficient lords in my hands and due to a lucky stroke when Sarleon took Javiksholm off the Koningur (who´s got 1 village left and a 150 army instead of 350+) and soon another 4 lords to be added to my prisoner train and Ravenstern declaring on the green horde as well it´s pretty much time to siege all those tower castles and conquer anything between Nal Tar and Javiksholm for Pendor.

Leonion said:

There are 2 lords there.
142+41 and 45

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Bah. You are probably right.

The idea of a random lord having such an excessive amount of prisoners is cool... Not uncommon to see +1000 prisoners for non-factions, but actual Lords?