Is it ever worth holding land financially speaking?

The first turn I own a town or castle I get a lot of cash, the first turn I owned a town I got 12k in tariffs and like 9 in rents.  Thats good money. 

Second turn was like 2k and 3k.  I'm guessing the first turn is due to an AI bonus or the like. 

Sometimes I'll get tariffs up to 5k on a town but then for some reason rents are less than 1000.  This is Ethos which is currently the richest city in the game. 

Long story short, at best you seem to make enough to pay for the garrison from a castle or town but thats about it.  I see them more as money pits unless you want to only use low quality troops, and villages as things to baby sit.

Then add on the cost of upgrades, and you will most likely NEVER see that as a return on investment. 

If it weren't for your own knight orders (which are awesome) and being able to switch out troops, and hold extra prisoners their would never be a need to ever own land. 

I don't have a money problem, since I have a prisoner based income but ideally I'd think land should be worth more, trade a bit more viable, and prisoners worth less.  One good bandit spawn = a week from a castle in funds (fully upgraded with 100 mineral), which just doesn't seem right.

Generally, it is. What I imagine most frugal people do when it comes to garrisons is to simply throw in 500+ low wage troops like peasants and militiamen. The numbers typically scare off enemy lords and you're paying much less than say 250 medium to high tier troops

Although I haven't really done any precise math myself, so people can correct me if I'm wrong

Tariffs greatly change due to the amount of trade - means the more peace hte more income as more caravans visit your lands and peons sell their goods.
Which is the reason why certain central towns - located at trade hubs - yield far more income than some towns on the end of the known earth, like Cez or Poinsbruk.
Everyone knows There Be Monsters or Dragons on that piece of the map so avoids it.

Holding lands is financially worht it - wether you use the bulk or precise method matters little, just keep in mind that tax inefficiency is limited to 65% so once you hit that mark you can´t get lower.

So either you take all the property or simply the richest towns/villages to either fullily maximie the tax inefficiency penalty or avoid it at all.

Oyclo said:

The first turn I own a town or castle I get a lot of cash, the first turn I owned a town I got 12k in tariffs and like 9 in rents.  Thats good money. 

Second turn was like 2k and 3k.  I'm guessing the first turn is due to an AI bonus or the like. 

Sometimes I'll get tariffs up to 5k on a town but then for some reason rents are less than 1000.  This is Ethos which is currently the richest city in the game. 

Long story short, at best you seem to make enough to pay for the garrison from a castle or town but thats about it.  I see them more as money pits unless you want to only use low quality troops, and villages as things to baby sit.

Then add on the cost of upgrades, and you will most likely NEVER see that as a return on investment. 

If it weren't for your own knight orders (which are awesome) and being able to switch out troops, and hold extra prisoners their would never be a need to ever own land. 

I don't have a money problem, since I have a prisoner based income but ideally I'd think land should be worth more, trade a bit more viable, and prisoners worth less.  One good bandit spawn = a week from a castle in funds (fully upgraded with 100 mineral), which just doesn't seem right.

Click to expand...

If you want to have a 'normal' kingdom where your cities are defended by garrisons, you should give the garrisonable fifes to your lords while you only hold the villages.

If you want optimal control, don't garrison your cities (or with only a token force to deter single lord sieges. 60-70 guys should suffice). Use a roaming defense force to counter siege. You can earn somewhere around 40-50k per week with all the fifes if you have 700-800 troops total garrisoned in one city while the other ones are empty.  What you are doing here is abusing the fact that the AI generally only sieges with one huge army (rather than 3-4 smaller sized band) and you can always just move troops there if they are garrisoned in a centralized location because of how long it takes for them to build the ladders.

Don't stuff your towns with low level troops because they actually weaken your defenses. it is much easier to crack a town with 500 peasants and 200 knights than a town with just 200 knights.

bobknight said:

If you want to have a 'normal' kingdom where your cities are defended by garrisons, you should give the garrisonable fifes to your lords while you only hold the villages.

Click to expand...

Then your income becomes vulnerable to raids. There's also that psychological thing where if you have some vulnerable holding, it would divide your attention from things actually more important in the long run. Like actually picking and winning big battles.

If you want optimal control, don't garrison your cities (or with only a token force to deter single lord sieges. 60-70 guys should suffice). Use a roaming defense force to counter siege. You can earn somewhere around 40-50k per week with all the fifes if you have 700-800 troops total garrisoned in one city while the other ones are empty.  What you are doing here is abusing the fact that the AI generally only sieges with one huge army (rather than 3-4 smaller sized band) and you can always just move troops there if they are garrisoned in a centralized location because of how long it takes for them to build the ladders.

Click to expand...

Even better: Pick the cities you want to leave empty. The AI prioritizes fiefs with few defenders first and when an assault into that walled center fails the army tends to disperse without caring whether that place is Oregar Castle or not. For instance if I hold Windholm and Ravenstern I'd leave Ravenstern empty because it's MUCH easier to defend than Windholm.

Don't stuff your towns with low level troops because they actually weaken your defenses. it is much easier to crack a town with 500 peasants and 200 knights than a town with just 200 knights.

Click to expand...

This, on the other hand, is patently false. With good tactics, 200 knights on top of the garrison and 500 peasants your enemies will find themselves enjoying a -5 Battle Advantage at best and facing all 50-200 knights at the top of the ladder depending on your battlesizer. Then it's time to take a coffee break and return to find a heroic victory with one of your troop killed/knocked unconscious for every 10 to 20 of theirs. Works best with Totally-Not-Twilight-Knight CKO.

Argeus the Paladin said:

bobknight said:

If you want to have a 'normal' kingdom where your cities are defended by garrisons, you should give the garrisonable fifes to your lords while you only hold the villages.

Click to expand...

Then your income becomes vulnerable to raids. There's also that psychological thing where if you have some vulnerable holding, it would divide your attention from things actually more important in the long run. Like actually picking and winning big battles.

If you want optimal control, don't garrison your cities (or with only a token force to deter single lord sieges. 60-70 guys should suffice). Use a roaming defense force to counter siege. You can earn somewhere around 40-50k per week with all the fifes if you have 700-800 troops total garrisoned in one city while the other ones are empty.  What you are doing here is abusing the fact that the AI generally only sieges with one huge army (rather than 3-4 smaller sized band) and you can always just move troops there if they are garrisoned in a centralized location because of how long it takes for them to build the ladders.

Click to expand...

Even better: Pick the cities you want to leave empty. The AI prioritizes fiefs with few defenders first and when an assault into that walled center fails the army tends to disperse without caring whether that place is Oregar Castle or not. For instance if I hold Windholm and Ravenstern I'd leave Ravenstern empty because it's MUCH easier to defend than Windholm.

Don't stuff your towns with low level troops because they actually weaken your defenses. it is much easier to crack a town with 500 peasants and 200 knights than a town with just 200 knights.

Click to expand...

This, on the other hand, is patently false. With good tactics, 200 knights on top of the garrison and 500 peasants your enemies will find themselves enjoying a -5 Battle Advantage at best and facing all 50-200 knights at the top of the ladder depending on your battlesizer. Then it's time to take a coffee break and return to find a heroic victory with one of your troop killed/knocked unconscious for every 10 to 20 of theirs. Works best with Totally-Not-Twilight-Knight CKO.

Click to expand...

What is your battle size? At low levels in battle size, you will have about 50-60 peasants and 90 knights. When your knights die, it will be replaced by another even mix of peasants and knights. Eventually(1k+ battles) you will be left with a handful of knights and nothing but peasants. That is when you lose.

With a large battle size (like mine, at 1k+). Peasants will overflow the battlements, leaving knights difficult to get into position to 'plug' the hole. If you have a ton of time, you can move all of the peasants off the wall (along with the knights) then move the knights back on the wall. however, there are two issues with this: 1. it takes something like 2-3 mins for them to all GTFO the wall and then get back on it. Chances are the enemy have already gained the wall. 2. Even if you can place your knights back on the wall, it is not as good 'placement' as the default AI set when the siege started. They will leave a gap unless you constantly micro them. it is also difficult to place archers if you have multiple towers to man.

If you do not move the peasants off the wall, you will have chinks in your armour. The reason why defenders can hold sieges with 3-4 to 1 ratio is because you have a solid wall plugging the hole and have multiple people attacking the one guy climbin up the ladder. If your peasants keeps on getting chopped down or not do enough damage, they can gain a foothold- at which point you will rapidly lose defender's advantage.

Leaving peasants in your base is NOT a sound strategy, especially if you are facing overwhelming odds to begin with. The peasants serve as an excellent deterrent to a certain extent, but due to the fact that their combat strength in auto calc is very low, grouped enemies dont' really give a **** about them when they siege en-mass.

If you can somehow make sure that the computers dont' spawn peasants on your wall, then it might be worth it. But even if you have 10-15+ types of elite units and a **** ton of peasants on the bottom of the stack, you will still get tons of those idiots with pitchforks. There is just no effective way around the fact that computer tries to spawn a somewhat even distro of troops from your entire list.

(Note that I play with full damage to both units and PC, with 1.5k battle size and around 200% resultant difficulty level. This advice may not be relevant if you are playing at 1/2 or 1/4 damage.)

Well in my current game I own Ethos.

One week, 5000k rents 9k tariffs (at peace) = good.
Next one, No rents, 5k tariffs, (still at peace) = ?
Next weak 700 rents, 7k tariffs (still at peace) = meh

I guess everyone moved 

I've personally just came to the conclusion that land is just for show and strategic value.  I can make that sort of money and usually better offing one small lord army or two caravans with my KO. 

Its way to haphazard and vague to really count on if you need to pay the troops.  And I have NO idea how you would try to pay for a personal KO worth its salt if you didn't farm prisoners.  I'm guessing my Knights are about 400k and my sergeants only slightly less in cost of upgrades.  Of course its the best stuff, but I think thats the only way to make a KO worth it over the established ones which already have great stats and equipment.

Battle size wise, I find about 300 the sweet spot.  More than that and their isn't any real order to land battles and castles just become a clogged mess.  Sometimes 300 can get stupid, I also find it is really a huge advantage to defend with higher battle sizes. 

bobknight said:

Argeus the Paladin said:

bobknight said:

If you want to have a 'normal' kingdom where your cities are defended by garrisons, you should give the garrisonable fifes to your lords while you only hold the villages.

Click to expand...

Then your income becomes vulnerable to raids. There's also that psychological thing where if you have some vulnerable holding, it would divide your attention from things actually more important in the long run. Like actually picking and winning big battles.

If you want optimal control, don't garrison your cities (or with only a token force to deter single lord sieges. 60-70 guys should suffice). Use a roaming defense force to counter siege. You can earn somewhere around 40-50k per week with all the fifes if you have 700-800 troops total garrisoned in one city while the other ones are empty.  What you are doing here is abusing the fact that the AI generally only sieges with one huge army (rather than 3-4 smaller sized band) and you can always just move troops there if they are garrisoned in a centralized location because of how long it takes for them to build the ladders.

Click to expand...

Even better: Pick the cities you want to leave empty. The AI prioritizes fiefs with few defenders first and when an assault into that walled center fails the army tends to disperse without caring whether that place is Oregar Castle or not. For instance if I hold Windholm and Ravenstern I'd leave Ravenstern empty because it's MUCH easier to defend than Windholm.

Don't stuff your towns with low level troops because they actually weaken your defenses. it is much easier to crack a town with 500 peasants and 200 knights than a town with just 200 knights.

Click to expand...

This, on the other hand, is patently false. With good tactics, 200 knights on top of the garrison and 500 peasants your enemies will find themselves enjoying a -5 Battle Advantage at best and facing all 50-200 knights at the top of the ladder depending on your battlesizer. Then it's time to take a coffee break and return to find a heroic victory with one of your troop killed/knocked unconscious for every 10 to 20 of theirs. Works best with Totally-Not-Twilight-Knight CKO.

Click to expand...

What is your battle size? At low levels in battle size, you will have about 50-60 peasants and 90 knights. When your knights die, it will be replaced by another even mix of peasants and knights. Eventually(1k+ battles) you will be left with a handful of knights and nothing but peasants. That is when you lose.

With a large battle size (like mine, at 1k+). Peasants will overflow the battlements, leaving knights difficult to get into position to 'plug' the hole. If you have a ton of time, you can move all of the peasants off the wall (along with the knights) then move the knights back on the wall. however, there are two issues with this: 1. it takes something like 2-3 mins for them to all GTFO the wall and then get back on it. Chances are the enemy have already gained the wall. 2. Even if you can place your knights back on the wall, it is not as good 'placement' as the default AI set when the siege started. They will leave a gap unless you constantly micro them. it is also difficult to place archers if you have multiple towers to man.

If you do not move the peasants off the wall, you will have chinks in your armour. The reason why defenders can hold sieges with 3-4 to 1 ratio is because you have a solid wall plugging the hole and have multiple people attacking the one guy climbin up the ladder. If your peasants keeps on getting chopped down or not do enough damage, they can gain a foothold- at which point you will rapidly lose defender's advantage.

Leaving peasants in your base is NOT a sound strategy, especially if you are facing overwhelming odds to begin with. The peasants serve as an excellent deterrent to a certain extent, but due to the fact that their combat strength in auto calc is very low, grouped enemies dont' really give a **** about them when they siege en-mass.

If you can somehow make sure that the computers dont' spawn peasants on your wall, then it might be worth it. But even if you have 10-15+ types of elite units and a **** ton of peasants on the bottom of the stack, you will still get tons of those idiots with pitchforks. There is just no effective way around the fact that computer tries to spawn a somewhat even distro of troops from your entire list.

(Note that I play with full damage to both units and PC, with 1.5k battle size and around 200% resultant difficulty level. This advice may not be relevant if you are playing at 1/2 or 1/4 damage.)

Click to expand...

I hardly think many players play with a 1k battlesize so saying the "500 peasants at bottom of stack" is bad tactics is simply misleading since many players swear by it.

i agree its a little bit misleading, such a high battle size can make a whole lot difference, since small battlesizer will have less problems and giving you a higher ratio of knights to peasants, i fight in a 298 battlesizer (cus i cant get straight out 300 lol) and dont have the problem of bad ratios, but then again, i have knights, archers and footmen above the farmers.

while i believe people use the technique, i dont know if they use it religiously and every single town has only 200 knights and 500 peasants, if they build all buildings, there is one that trains the garrison, and that number of 500 peasants gets reduced into some trained militia and eventually footman(archers too), so unless people avoid building that if it doesnt have it (and once its b uilt by the ai it cant be removed), well, id find it to be tedious to keep removing the  trained units and then replace it with more farmers (or recruits), in any case, if you have a town or garrison with about a 2000 recruits/farmers, odds are, that city will be unlikely to be sieged, as general max numbers the ai great hosts go with is 2000 too, except if its the end game and a single
faction is left with near all lords, then its a little different as it can get crazy, but early game while all factions are on, 2000 farmers can be deterrent enough to not get even sieged

generally i found the towns being able to pay off their garrisons and part of my army but while being at war the best was ransoming and slave selling, but have to remember, you need to also develop the towns and its underlying villages, building if possible, all the possible buildings to raise their prosperity, the higher their prosperity, the better the rents and tarifs are.

while having to pay the garrison and  your own troops may reduce the income you get from towns, i think the benefit of owning towns comes from a different aspect, meaning a place you can rest for free or have always accessable to sell loot (if you have high relations with the town even more so) as well as a place where you can store units that you could use for different purposes (i go sieges with full archers, but roam for lords with a more mixed up army) as well as where you get your noble units for use or turning them into your CKO knights.

also generally speaking there is a limit on how much cities you can have before tax inefficiency kicks up, so having more fiefs becomes a detriment, in this case however, you can cheat a bit with the garrisons, give a town or castle you dont want to keep a large garrison of elite troops, then give said town to a lord of yours, voila, non costing large defensive garrison at your side, and unlike lords with large troops, towns dont seem to lose units even if it exceeds their tarifs/rents (which makes me have a question for the quick question and answer thread)

Towns and castles are generally unprofitable but necessary for other reasons.  The moneymakers are villages, which require no garrison (not allowed).  Personally, I never worry anymore about my villages getting raided, it's an unavoidable consequence of war and I don't bother defending unless I have nothing else to do.  The upkeep of troops is really the only thing that limits the player from acquiring a massive army of all elite troops, by massive I mean several thousand.

Hey now, Glumnar were my peeps, had 100 relation with them.  I pitty the Lord who thought he could raid them and get away with it.

I have an army costing me around 9k a week, I have a castle with a garrison of 260 men and two villages, and end up with a profit of around 1k-1.5k per week, plus all of the slave selling and looting from battles and tournaments and whatnot.
You just gotta upgrade your fiefs, markets in villages are one of the best things. Prosperity is very important, the fastest way to increase prosperity is by doing village quests, not the heartbeat ones, the vanilla ones. (give grain or cattle to villagers, train peasants...). My fiefs are now Rich and Wealthy, and the highest it can go I think is "very rich". the thing with towns is that I believe its income greatly depends on the villages around it, so if the lords aren't paying enough attention to the villages and aren't upgrading them enough and are looted, then the town won't give that much money either I think.

Yea...

My army was like 50k a week with 7 leadership or so 

Once I became king, gave myself a bunch of fiefs in my last game, I saw how huge a difference some towns/villages were to others (10k vrs 700) but then you hit the tax issue and I was loosing 17k a month to tax inefficiency