120K in the coffers, good troops, all wanted companions bought. Next step?

After Merc'ing and Vassaling with the Sarleons, I got a big ass payday ransoming enemy lords back to the enemy. My coffers are overflowing with money, and I've already outfitted me and my companions with some very good gear. I've hit my troop limit I can party with at ~115 right now (all good quality), and I've broken off with the Sarleons to be a vassel with the Ravenstern, who are fighting the Fierdsvain.

Map situation:
Sarleon: Doing good, picking off the Empire.
D'shar: Doing good, also picking off the Empire.
Ravenstern: Doing okay, picking off the Fierdsvain.
Fierdsvain: Doing not too good. Lost one city, but still a strong army.
Empire: Getting stomped all the way to Janos. They've got excellent coffers to ransom their lords though 

I'm in a bind here right now. I'm strong enough to fight lords one-on-one and win with some maneuvering, and got no need for extra troops or money at the moment. However, I'm still too weak to assault any castle or town the Fierdsvain have. My best bet right now is Avendor, which has recently flipped to Fierdsvain from Ravenstern. But even at a 150 garrison they can kick my ass. If they don't, the reinforcement of eight armies coming down on me whilst I'm building a siege tower will squash me.

What can/should I do now?

Keep playing till you get another opportunity.

Lure a strong unique spawn into fierdsvain army - that will keep them busy while you're building a tower.

Also how come you can't defeat 150 garrison with over 100 troops? Don't you use the standard "infantry in front, archers behind them and just keep shooting till all the enemies die" tactics? Aren't you an archer yourself (which sort of automatically subtracts about 30-40 from the number of enemies and leaves only 110-120 to your soldiers)?

Finally, you can also try and lure a very strong unique spawn close to the enemy town you want to capture and just hope they will sack it for you. Sometimes it works.

Generally, in PoP about half of tactical solutions are based on using unique spawns for your own purposes.

invest in town enterprises.

Leonion said:

Finally, you can also try and lure a very strong unique spawn close to the enemy town you want to capture and just hope they will sack it for you. Sometimes it works.

Generally, in PoP about half of tactical solutions are based on using unique spawns for your own purposes.

Click to expand...

until you pull the unique spawn with to an army that can actually deal with it and then every lord ends up with +200 new soldiers from the captured unique's pool and then proceed to screw your empire :X

but other than that, yeah that tends to help most of the times

Rajion said:

until you pull the unique spawn with to an army that can actually deal with it and then every lord ends up with +200 new soldiers from the captured unique's pool and then proceed to screw your empire :X

Click to expand...

That's why you need a fresh unique spawn.)
Personally in my games they rarely live long enough to get even 400 or so prisoners. I usually finish them off while they are still young.

Personally I'd get my troop size up to at least 150-200 then pull merc duty, wait until around the end of the contract and siege a city of my choosing, then when the contract runs out take it for my own.

Cheers everyone. I've somehow taken up on everyone's advice to some degree.

- I've let Avendor sail for now, and instead went through a period of peace as a Ravenstern vassel. This gave me time to jack up relationship with my given fief and invest in a few enterprises. Also increased my troop limit a bit.
- Sarleon declared war on Ravenstern. I took this opportunity to scout out Valorshield and Whitestag castle. I sieged Valorshield due to lesser defenses.
- I let my archers chip away at their health, and upped my own archery skill in the process. If an enemy stack came too close, I lured a Jatu army to disperse them. Eventually captured the castle and did the same Jatu tactic if it was sieged.
- Shortly afterwards the Sarleons made peace and the Fierdsvain declared war. I used this time to round up prisoners from weakened Jatu trains and beef up my castle.

Fierdsvain are a bunch of PITA's to fight with their axes. Also, their castles are mad stocked with garrisons. Ironoak is at 550 right now. If I attempt to siege any of them they just sally forth forcing me to retreat.

State of the map:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/suh7rw2f5xer1y1/Warband.png?dl=0

Whitestag Castle would have been ideal to take since it is pretty easy to defend but on the other hand also hard to siege (you would need some friendly lords to help you).

Valorshield has 2 ladders so if a 2k Fierdsvain pain train knocks on your door you will be in trouble. The again a random Noldor Lord might show up and save you

PS: Get friendly with the Noldor if not already, for free patrols.

bobknight said:

invest in town enterprises.

Click to expand...

This.

And maybe get more money. 120k can dissapear really quick.  I like to unlock the shop in Laria and buy horses/armor/shields there.

Save up more money (200K+), keep an eye on Cez since Empire is weak in your save. The first time I beat PoP, my founding city was Cez. It's easily one of the best b/c you have Snake Cult armies roaming in front of the peninsula entrance (which deters a lot of single lords looking to raid a village), you have the occasional Noldor patrol that you can assist against any party, and you have Shadow Legion whose bounty hunting quests happen to be Snake Cult.

I find that you generally need 500-600k gold to start an empire (especially if you want to go at it alone). you want to invest in things that will allow you to get more money. So this either means a crapton of slaver units, or town enterprises, OR gambling in tourneys.