Notsure said:
but vassals are so bad at managing garrison that im thinking of trying a centralized game when the next beta starts.
I gave away all the castles. All the towns make profit though - even after 70% lost in inefficiency and wages, they bring in about 8K. I gave away 2 towns, wish I had kept them, if towns are left alone long enough (ie: backwaters are great) they can grow to have quite a lot of rent.
My Blackthistle has 10K revenue, so that's about 2K of profit (7K lost to inefficiency and 1K wages). Though I messed up a bit and have Recruits (2dn/week) in some places instead of Peasants (1dn/week). If I can get TI from current 69 all the way down to 45 or so, then that would mean holding all the towns and (associated) villages becomes very profitable fairly fast. It is bad at first, as you have a couple good towns and a ton of villages adding to tax inefficiency, but at 9 towns, you will max out the TI anyway, and my kingdom has 8 towns in it (I own 6). And once you hit that limit, then adding all the villages is just good measure.
I don't know if you can give villages to companions then take them back later. If so, that might help. Improvements in villages are much less important than in town, because the AI can burn them down, and a village isn't worth much revenue compared to towns (all relative of course).
As for garrisons, I never give away a castle when I take it. First I say I'll postpone appointing a lord. Then I manage garrison and jam in some of my own troops, namely
- 2 Antarian Honor Guards
- 2 Antarian Guards
- 2 Antarian Nobles
- 2 Antarian Elite Infantry
- 2 Antarian Veteran Infantry
- All the other troops that appeared in the garrison.
This way when more troops appear (under the Lord's command) they will have all the infantry at the top. Then I go back, assign the castle, give myself the village and start them on building a Local Church, collect the first week of rents (because they can be massive, I've seen 8K from a village before, so its a nice bonus) then finally assign it.
